Series One: Human (In Five Episodes)
by J. David Reed
Summary: A 5-Episode story arc following the Doctor's newest foe, who seems to be using his own past against him, bringing up old wounds and opening new ones, and all jusy to prove a point... until the borders of good and evil start to blur. A comprehensive collection of the five separate Episodes I am writing
1. E1C1: Enter the Institute

'Broadplow Institute!' he beamed, wandering up the gravel-floor drive. 'Home to the technologically insane since twenty-one, three-oh-eight!'

'Why are we here, Doc?'

'Because it's interesting, and odd. Never done this trip before. New one for me too. And you did say you wanted some new places, so here we are.'

Clara followed from the TARDIS, not entirely sure about this idea. 'An insane asylum, though? It's it, I dunno, dangerous?'

'Why would it be?'

'Well, you know, insane?'

'Not like you to be cautious.'

'Hmm,' Clara hummed as she hopped along behind his striding steps. 'So what is 'technologically insane' anyway?'

'Oh covers a few things really. Internet addiction was the most common, but there have been a few advances in the last, ooh, nineteen thousand years. Cyborgs are just coming back into fashion, they're retro, you know!'

'So, that's it?'

'Well, not all. There are people who are convinced they're computer programs, programs that think they're people, and everything in-between.'

They strode up to the large, oak doors. 'Very nineteenth-century,' Clara chimed.

'Yes, well, some things never go out of fashion.' The Doctor knocked on the doors, granting them a booming echo. 'Well that sounds...'

'Empty?'

'Very empty, hello?!' he yelled. He knocked again. 'HELLO?!'

'So, it's an abandoned asylum?'

'Institute, and it shouldn't be...' he observed the door, sonic in hand. He scanned it and checked the readout on the device. 'No deadlock. Says it's open, but...' He pushed on the door, not able to budge it even a touch. 'But...'

'Scan it again!'

He scanned the door again, this time more focused and slow. 'There's a bubble-lock. Rare, very rare... and strong. Should have seen it. There's interference.'

'Is this going to be another case of 'let's go somewhere' turned 'we have to save this disaster that no-one else seems to have noticed!'

'I suppose so...' the door cracked open a sliver and the Doctor rammed his shoulder into the door, only to bounce off. 'That really hurt...'

'Oh move over,' Clara said, pushing him out the way. She looked at the door, up and down, as though it were an old enemy. She smiled and planted her foot, as hard as she could next to the lock she could see.

Bouncing her off, the doors didn't budge.

She looked a little closer, at the hinges.

'Ooohh...' she nodded. Grabbing the handle, she pulled on the oak giants, swinging them outwards. 'It's a pull door!'

The Doctor looked to his TARDIS. 'Never got the hang of that...'

Clara stepped in first, followed by the Doctor, who warned her not to run off.

The building was insanely huge. Bigger inside than it had looked outside, but that might just be an illusion. To Clara, it resembled a theatre hall she had been in once, on a trip to France. It was grand and royal, but silver, cold. It felt, for the oddest reasons, hollow. Empty.

There were, of course, no people. No signs of a revolution by the people on the establishment, nor did it look like they had shut down - it was just empty.

'Broadplow was infamous when they opened it,' the Doctor said, scanning the area. He seemed to think it was safe. 'Subjects of all races, species, variations were treated in the same respects. And it was a case-by-case admittance, no 'standard procedure'. If you had an addiction to the internet, there were therapy sessions. Faulty-thinking and G.T.D were brand-new diagnoses because of this place. Technology had started to rule the world, what with i-Pads and touch-screens and interfaces. Moved into developments of teleports, low-grav fields, super-food. Things changed, Clara. So did mental illness.'

'I had a friend who was schizophrenic when I was a teenager,' she remembered. 'It was awful. He used to tell me he could see people following his friends around, and no-one would notice but him.'

'How is he nowadays? There are lots of forms of schizophrenia. He could get the right help.'

'He killed himself,' Clara said. 'Last year of secondary school. He just didn't show up. I went to the funeral.'

'What was his name?'

'James Correy,' she said, with a small, sad smile. 'Bless him.'

'I'm sorry.'

'It's okay, Doctor. Long time ago. He's probably happier now. He was never happy alive, I guess. Can we move on?'

'Yes, yes of course.' The Doctor identified the front desk, and jumped over it.

'This place is really fancy for a mental hospital.'

'Not just for mental illness, Clara,' he said. 'This place was on the map. Made waves in the meta-media. It became somewhat of a tourist attraction.'

'Is that why you brought me here? To look at these people like they were in a zoo?'

'Not at all, Clara. I was intending on showing you a very old friend of mine, someone I'm trying to find in these files... A-ha!' He pulled up a tiny, black rectangle, half the size of his thumb. 'Life-long chips. They get these implanted upon admittance. They trace brain activity, heart rates, vital signs. The usual.'

'Implanted?'

'Well, it's like a pin. You wear in behind your ear, and you just forget about it. They itch a bit, mind,'

Clara looked up into the room, it's grey grandure confusing her. 'So they built this place to impress people?'

'Basically, this bit, yeah. The function rooms are a bit more, well, functional. Less showy.'

'I thought you'd never been here before?'

'I haven't, but I've read plenty of brochures!' The Doctor pressed a button under the desk and a door opened to Clara's left. 'Power's still up. Wherever they went, and whatever was locking us out, it happened recently... maybe that's why she brought us here...'

''She'? 'She' who?'

'The TARDIS, she brought us to this exact time. She does it sometimes. I mean, I was aimed for a hundred years ago, so she must have known something was up.'

Leaping over the desk, the Doctor lead Clara through the door into a long corridor, along which there must have been hundreds of open doors.

'Oh,' the Doctor said.

'Oh?'

'Oh. They got out. They're all out.'

'I thought that was obvious,' Clara smiled.

'No but all of them. This place, it is high security. Yeah, they do touristy things, but that's just because they have stupidly good security. There's no fail-safe, no 'open-all-doors' button. Whatever did they, they went through the wiring for each door. Without being caught. Or hurt.'

'Hurt?'

'Well, some of the patients here would have been dangerous. A small amount, yes, but there are always some.'

Clara looked at the multitudes of doors. 'If this place was locked, where did they go?'

'It wouldn't have been locked at the time,' the Doctor said. 'My worry is, why didn't any of the staff stop them?'

They heard a slam from behind them. Turning, they saw that the front, oak doors that they'd come in through were shut.

'Oh,' he said.

'Did they close on their own?'

'No,' he said. 'Which means we're not alone.'


	2. E1C2: Locked

'Not alone?' Clara looked at him, somewhere between angry, scared and annoyed. 'What do you mean 'not alone'?'

'Well, like, there's probably someone else here. I mean, it was a full building not long ago, seeing as the power's still on. Whatever happened, maybe someone stuck around.'

The Doctor moved to inspect one of the doors more closely. It was basically a metal slab on mechanised hinges, but he wasn't looking at that. He was looking at the small plate on the door, where Clara assumed there would be a door handle of some kind.

It was a black, rectangular plate with four blue circles on. The Doctor pressed three of the circles at once and moved them around the fourth. There was a beep.

'It's a system I know,' he said smiling. 'That's good, means I should be able to hack into it when we get to the data core.'

'Data core?'

'Computing mother-load. It'll have all the records of this place since the first day it was adapted into Broadplow. Including how these doors were opened.'

'So we find the core, we learn how it was done?'

'Yes.'

'But not why. Or by whom.'

'No.'

'So how do we find those things out, exactly?'

'We deduct!' The Doctor bounced up from his crouching position and looked at Clara. He face was unusually serious. 'We should turn back.'

'What? Why?'

'Because, if this thing, whatever it was that closed that door had the ability to do so from the start. That bubble lock wasn't as difficult to open as it should have been.'

'You're saying we were let in.'

'It's a trap, Clara. Something wanted us here,' he looked at the oak doors. 'We should concentrate our efforts on getting out.'

'But what about the patients?'

'Not much we can do, they're gone. Maybe dead. Probably dead, actually. Things in the Universe aren't as kind as you and I, Clara.'

'I've seen that, Doc. What I never want to see is you walking away from something like this.'

'Then I won't, but you have to. Clara you are in danger-'

'So are you.'

'I've lost too many people because I didn't take precautions like this.'

'I'm not going running off. I'm not going to leave this, either. And I know you won't.'

'Clara, if this is a trap, set especially for me, then we have no idea what is being planned. This could be a set-up, to get me here. To hurt me. Or to hurt you.'

'Why hurt me? I'm just innocent-little-Clara!'

'Don't you be diminishing yourself. For all we know it could have technology we haven't even thought of. This is the two-hundred and fourteenth century!'

'Doctor,' Clara saw something behind him, in the hall.

'Yes?'

'Look,' she pointed.

As the Doctor turned, he saw the young girl, stood silently. Watching. She was maybe six, human, in a small dress.

'Hello...' the Doctor's caution unnerved Clara. 'How've you been?'

The girl flickered, as though she were a mere projection. She was gone.

'What was that?' Clara stared at where she had been. 'Is that little girl okay?'

'No idea,' the Doctor said. 'But it was just an image. Projected in front of us, probably to unnerve us. Why would it want us scared?'

'Maybe it needs us scared. Panicking?'

'Maybe,' the Doctor looked up. 'Do you know who that was, Clara?'

'No.'

'It was you. As a child. You don't remember the dress?'

'How the hell do you remember that?'

'I'm Santa,' he smirked. 'I just know everything, okay?'

'That's kinda creepy, Doc.'

'There are no visible ways to send an image like that with light,' he said, changing the subject. 'So maybe...' he got out his sonic screwdriver and swept the area. 'Oh my!'

'What?'

'Nanomites.' He clicked his fingers, and his hand seemed to explode into a bright, golden light. 'Tiny machines, typically used in places like this during the fiftieth to the sixtieth century.'

'What do they do?'

'Heal.'

'So they're good?'

'Not always...' The Doctor had a chilling memory of the gas-mask child. 'Poor boy.'

'Why would they be here though? If they were from thousands of years ago?'

'I'm not sure. No idea, actually. The technology is out-dated, by far. These are the exact model I met back in World War Two.'

'You met tiny doctor-robots in World War Two?'

'I met lots of things in World War Two. Including Hitler.'

'Seriously?'

'My friend put him in a cupboard.'

'That's mad.'

'Hello, my name's the Doctor. Nice to meet you.'

'Oh shut up,' she laughed. Her laughter stopped when she saw another figure back in the corridor. 'Hello?'

The Doctor spun round to look, and saw a young boy, in his teens. His eyes were blood-shot and his hair mank with sweat. 'I don't know him.'

'I do,' she said, sadness hollowing her voice. 'James?'

The Doctor looked at her, then to the apparition. 'It's just an image, Clara.'

'How can it be?'

James' projection flickered. 'It's light, nothing else. Just a picture, an image, designed to scare you.'

'How can they know about him?' she asked, looking at the Doctor. 'How the hell do they know?!'

'You talked about him. This is a centre for creatures too good at technology to be sane. They probably just uber-googled you.'

'That's sick.'

'That's the entertainment of the future, Clara.'

James disappeared in a flicker.

'I don't understand,' she said, looking at him. 'Why is this happening?'

'I don't know. From what I can tell, this place is fine. History says it's open for another two hundred years! No riots, no security breaches. It goes completely smoothly until another place opens up and they move the patients there instead, leaving this place as a tourist attraction.'

'Well, it's not open, is it?! It's locked and empty and abandoned. And telepathic.'

'It's just fishing for information, something to use against you. Against us. For whatever reason.'

'Are we still trying to get out, then?'

'Absolutely,' the Doctor said. 'Via the data core. We need to see what happened. Understand this time-defying establishment.'

The two of them continued down the corridor, the end of which greeted them with another metal-slab door, however this one had a circular wheel-handle.

'Do we spin?' Clara asked.

'I think we spin.' He spun the wheel and the door clicked open, letting the Doctor push through.

To Clara's confusion, and the Doctor's horror/joy, the door lead them into the console room of the TARDIS, but an older version. The first version it had ever been.

The walls were a tinted grey, shining in the warm light. The console was jaded and sharp, as it always had been.

'This really can't be here,' the Doctor said. 'Like really, really... no!' He allowed himself a nostalgic smile, and closed the door.

'We are we back out here?' Clara asked. 'What was that place?'

'It was an old version of the TARDIS. Very old. The default setting of the type-40. And I'm just trying something out...'

He spun the wheel again, this time opening it to find a much darker scene of the next corridor of the facility. 'There we are!'

'This is really weird,' Clara said.

'I know!'


	3. E1C3: Familiar Faces

Clara and the Doctor slowly treaded down the corridor, which shrouded them in shadows, and had no doors. It was just a straight, seemingly unending line of grey, metal wall. The Doctor used the small light of the sonic screwdriver to light the way.

_Should have remembered the torch_, he thought to himself.

'We're missing something,' the Doctor said.

'We're missing a lot,' Clara replied. 'This place makes no sense. Why just have a blank corridor? 'And how could it just change like that?'

'Whatever's going on, I need to get to that data core.'

After a moment of silent walking, Clara asked 'Doctor, who was that 'old friend' you mentioned?'

'I shouldn't say.'

'Why not?'

'Because whoever's listening in was able to use your past against you. God know what they'll find with me.'

'Oh, Doctor Doctor,' came a voice from up ahead. 'We've found everything.'

'I know that voice...' he squinted into the darkness. There was no-one there that he could see, but that voice, that sick joy, he knew it from somewhere. 'Who are you?'

'Oh, you don't remember? But we had so much in common!'

'No,' he said, thinking. 'Really? Of everyone they could have brought up from the dead, it was you?'

'Well,' the Master's voice chuckled. 'I am so dashingly handsome. Perhap they needed some sex-appeal.'

'Who is it? Someone you know?' Clara asked.

'Oh yes,' he said. 'A man who should be dead. I assume you're little more than a projection? A beam of light? A sound recording?'

'You have no idea!' Before them, in a black suit, his hair blonde and sweaty, stood the Master. He grinned.

'You said 'we', 'we' who?'

'We are everyone, Doctor!'

'Everyone?'

'Plotting your journeys in the TARDIS is exceptionally easy, you know. Even more so when you have the TARDIS in your possession.'

'My TARDIS? _My_ TARDIS?!'

'_Your_ TARDIS, yes. Calm down, sweetie. She's just fine. But her logs have been thoroughly hacked and extrapolated. Oh, by the way, if you're planning on going to the data core, you might want to take three steps forwards, hit the lever on the wall and see what happens. Or do you not trust your own imagination?'

The Master cackled, his laugh echoing off the metal walls, before disappearing into the dark.

'Wait!' The Doctor lunged forwards, but he was gone. He doubted he was ever more than light anyway, but hey.

Looking to his left, he saw the lever he assumed the Master was talking about.

'Do we pull it?' Clara asked. 'I don't think we should pull it.'

'We don't pull,' the Doctor said. 'These people have my TARDIS. If they're hacking into it's logs, God know what else they're getting into.'

'Why, got something to hide?' Clara asked with a smile.

'How can you be joking at a time like this?! With moving rooms and Master and little creepy girls!'

'Hey!'

'Oh. Sorry.'

'This is what we do, Doc. I'm okay with that.'

'Yes, but usually there's more running and less creepy hallways and dead teenagers named James.'

'I admit, it is an oddity,' she said, nodding. She smiled. 'I kinda want to pull it now.'

'_Why_?'

'Well, I know you feel it too, so don't even try and resist it.'

'Are you trying to get us killed?'

'Or worse, _expelled_?' she laughed.

'You are a nightmare.'

'Just pull it.'

'Fine.' The Doctor smacked down the lever, and the floor gave out underneath them.

With a scream and a grope, Clara managed to cling onto the edge of the hole, with the Doctor hanging onto her leg.

'Claraaaaaa!'

'Hold on!'

'I _am_!'

He slipped an inch or two, sliding down her legs.

'Doctor?!' Clara looked down at him, barely able to keep hold of the edge; it was a thin, metal floor, not giving her much friction to keep hold of.

'I think I can see the floor,' he said, looking down. There was a dim light.

'This place has been playing mind-tricks with us all along, and you want to trust a floor you can barely see?'

'Maybe,' he admitted. 'Not much choice, really. Okay, on three, I'm going to let go.'

'Doctor-'

'One.'

'Don't do it.'

'Two!'

'Seriously?'

'Three!' He released his grasp, but just as he did so the light switched off. Clara got a glimpse of his terrified long face before the darkness took him.

Clara, now with substantially less weight on her legs, opted to try and get back up. She tried to swing her legs up, but the corridor and hole were both too narrow to get any swing. Instead, she shuffled to one side and, with a painful stretch, managed to grab hold of the lever and use it to pull herself up enough to get her feet on solid ground.

Now, without a light, the corridor was almost completely black. With a stroke of genius, she remembered her phone was in her jacket pocket, and, clicking it on, it gave her at least a little light to work with.

After maybe thirty metres, she met a fork-split in the path. Three options. The middle seemed to go straight on. The left had a ladder that went upwards, the right one that went downwards.

Assuming it would be easier to navigate this place with a Time-Lord in tow, she decided to go down. Right it was.

As she moved to the ladder, however, her phone flashed over a face, in the wall. It was James.

Screaming, Clara recoiled, threatening the wall-face with karate-trained hands.

The face laughed at her.

Three more appeared, all around her. Laughing. Mocking. She could stand the laughing, she supposed. As long as she didn't let it get to her. Someone was playing tricks on her, trying to scare her off.

That meant she was going the right way!

She hopped down the ladder, into a tiny space that was barely big enough to fit her in. The faces ceased their laughing, and, in what Clara could have described as a cruel attempt to freak her out they began to scream at her. No maye ten faces were above her, and they grew out of the walls in the small downward tunnel. A thousand copies of James' face, all screaming at her.

All the way down.


	4. E1C4: The Light

The drop was farther than he had expected. Maybe he had broken something. His leg hurt like hell.

Lifting his head, the Doctor tried to open his eyes, but the light of the room nearly blinded him. It scorched his eyes, physically forcing his head back down.

He covered his eyes with his hands, in an almost primal attempt to get rid of the light, feeling it burning in him.

'Aaahhrgh!' he screeched, unable to create speech. HE managed to calm himself down, feeling the burning calm. 'Okay, okay.'

He slowly stood, untrusting of his surroundings. Even with his eyes closed, he had the blurred, pink light pouring through his eyelids. It was inescapable.

'Doctor?' a voice came.

His heart dropped. 'No,' he whispered. He couldn't open his eyes, as much as he might want to.

'Doctor?' she asked, louder this time. He could almost feel her there. 'Is it too bright?' her voice was right, but the words weren't hers. It was like listening to a song out of tempo. Something didn't fit.

'Rose?' he asked, reaching out to touch her. His hands didn't meet anything.

The pink light in his eyes became faint, leaving until he became confident he could open his eyes. He didn't anyway.

He couldn't look at her.

It's an illusion. All of it, an illusion. Playing tricks with light, projections, putting imaged in his head. It's not real. She's not real.

'Please,' she said, her voice sounding far too much like the way he remembered it.

'You're not real,' he said. His voice cracked. 'You're not real.'

'Yeah, she said. 'I know. It's strange. Like I can see inside your head. Why can I do that?'

'Rose, you need to go. I need to go. You're not real. You're in a parallel universe, with the Doctor-Donna, and you're there. Not here. You have a new baby brother and Mickey and...'

'I know, Doctor.' She said. She sounded so sad.

The Doctor opened his eyes, and saw her, as he had first met her. She was wearing that hoodie, her eyes looking at him with fear. 'What's going on?' he asked. 'How are you here? How do you know these things?'

'You, Doctor. You gave me a look inside your head, and now I'm feeding with it.'

'You're not Rose.'

'No, I'm not. I'm not anyone. I'm everyone. Every living thing that was in this asylum, they are me. And they want it.'

'Why, though, why would you do this?'

She stared at him, using Rose's body as a vessel, to make him feel the guilt and regret he always had in his heart. To bring it forward. 'To feel.'

'And, most importantly, and this really is the kicker: why would you tell me?'

'Because you are not different, Doctor. You are not going to leave. I shall convince you to become me, where you can live in any memory. And I will do the same to your friend, Clara. The girl you are so obsessed with. You will become us.'

'Convince me? To become a part of you. Don't mean to be rude, but don't ever believe that you can make me change my mind. I will reduce you to what you are. Whatever you are.'

'I am the light,' it said. It's voice wasn't Rose's anymore. It was a thousand voices. 'I am the light in the tunnel after death. I am the first blink of birth. I am light and memory and knowledge and God and faith and pain.'

'Yeah?' he looked at her face, the face he had known so well, now staring at him with a power that didn't belong in her. 'Well I'm the Doctor. And I have a little suggestion for you, Light.'

'You cannot have thought that I do not see. You have no advice.'

'Run.'

'What?'

'Run. For your deluded life. Because you are not more powerful than me. You've never met anything like me before. I will do something you might have forgotten.'

'You cannot. I am everything.'

'You are ill! You are just as insane as the creature you convinced. You are arrogant and overconfident and powerless!' the Doctor preached, arms outstretched. The Light began to evolve from Rose, pouring from her eyes and mouth. 'You are everything I loathe.'

'You have described yourself, Doctor,' it said in a calmer tone. 'We seen into your head. I can explore your memories. If you will not become me, I will become you. We will convince your thoughts to be ours. Join the Light.'

The Doctor, without a further thought, ran straight into the Light, a move he knew it hadn't anticipated. Instead of welcome him or try to 'join' him, it swerved, distorting the remnants of Rose's flesh body. Twisted arches of Light tore out of her, and, in one last look, the Doctor saw her face, anger and rage, and knew that somewhere, she was living a life, exactly the opposite of what he saw.

Somewhere, she was happy.

He ran, behind the creature, to an archway he had seen in it's light, never stopping. Bounding round corners, into dark hallways he knew this creature had complete control over, he searched for Clara. It was after her, and it seemed unstoppable. He would never say it to it's face, of course, but he was scared. Maybe it already knew. It seemed to be telepathic, after all.

He bounded around the asylum, from empty corridors to dead-end rooms, with absolutely no plan of where he was heading. He hoped either towards Clara or the Data core.

He thought about the room he had just been in; it had been some kind of hall, a larger room. Somewhere the Light could hide out, waiting for wandering tourists.

Maybe a storage room? It wasn't the data core, he knew that. There was no place for information storage, no files, no cyber-space.

The Light seemed to be able to control matter, though. It changed the corridor into a copy of the old TARDIS console, and making those people appear like that. How was it doing it?

He eventually cascaded down a steel corridor, escaping into the original main hall, which was still held in an eerie soft blue glow, from the over-hanging lights.

There was nowhere else to go. He had to assume that the Light was following him, so he couldn't go back the way he'd come, and the only other way was the identical corridor directly across. He knew that the Light would just follow him, and this place was the best idea he had.

'Come on then,' he whispered to himself, looking down into the tube he'd escaped from, staring into the darkness. 'Come and get me.'

He heard steps down the way, coming towards him.

'Doctor?' he heard. It was Clara's voice. for a moment, he was going to move forwards, go to meet her. But he knew that the Light was able to change it's form. It was able to create shapes and change rooms and 'convince' mentally unstable geniuses into joining it's being. It could be anything. 'Doctor? Is that you?'

And the Light had been down that way, coming after him. But would it become her? Had it already got her? Had it 'convinced' Clara to become one with the light?

'Clara?' he shouted back, daring to believe in her.

She ran towards him, smiling. 'I thought I'd lost you!'

'You did, nearly.'

'Where did you drop to?'

'A dark room with a bright light, where have you been?'

'Looking for you!'

'Is that right?'

'Did you find anything?'

'Sort of. Big bright thing, thinks it's a God, I laughed at it and shouted a bit, then I ran.'

'Where is it now?'

'Anywhere,' he said, looking at her. 'Anyone.'

She realised what he meant. He didn't believe it was her. 'Right.'

'Tell me something only you would know,'

'Why?'

'So I know it's you. It can't read your mind,' he lied. 'Tell me something true.'

Clara looked at him, scared. 'I don't know what to say,' she said. If it was her, she would tell him something incredibly personal. If not, it wouldn't bother. It can read minds, see memories, but it has to make an effort to feel. It doesn't have emotions attached to memories. It would say anything. She would say something important.

'Anything,' he said.

Clara watched him, trying to find some way to convince him of who she was.

It all became very complicated when there were more footsteps, and another Clara stepped out of the dark metal hole. 'Hello?'

'Hmm,' the Doctor hummed, looking at them both. 'Well, this is interesting.'


	5. E1C5: Any Happy Little Thought?

The two Claras stood before him, watching him, and then each other, almost to mirror-image perfection. He couldn't distinguish through mannerisms which was which. Who was real.

The first Clara, who had climbed out of the darkness first, seemed in no way different to the second. For all he knew they could both be fake, and this is yet another mind trick to make him disorientated and confused.

He started to wonder what the purpose of this grand scheme was.

'The most important leaf in human history,' the first said. 'The one that lead to my parents meeting. It's what she called it, my mum.'

'Why is she saying that?' the other Clara said. 'Is that thing inside my head, making a copy?'

'I'm not sure what to say...'

'Stop being me!'

'Stop pretending you're real!'

'I am real!'

The two bickered at each other, until they both noticed how the Doctor was watching them. Not with fear, not with concern. For the first time, he looked at Clara with suspicion. She was this impossible girl, who could die and come back in an entirely new life. Who knows what secrets she's hiding. Who knows what secrets the Light has got to.

'Doctor?' the both said, looking at him.

'There is a question,' he said. 'A question that might unlock a very curious encounter. Something that might change my fate, and your fate. One simple little thing that only one of you will be able to answer.' He took his sonic screwdriver out. Both Clara's took a step backwards. 'What,' he said. 'Is in my left pocket?'

The two looked dumbstruck.

'You were asking me to name something important a minute ago,' the first Clara said.

'Yes, well, answer this one. Because one of you, or both of you, imitated someone you really shouldn't have. You've been toying with me and my friend, using my past to wind me like a spinning top and I am sick to death of you!' his voice escalated in such a way that neither of them had heard before. 'So, what's in my pocket?'

He tapped the pocket of his jacket teasingly.

Both Claras set to work on racking their memories. One closed her eyes, while the other stared at her shoes.

Maybe a minute passed, with both trying to figure it out, or think of a reasonable guess.

He held his trusty sonic in-hand, expecting a response any time soon.

'I think...' one said eventually. 'Is it that life-long chip?'

'Let's have a look, shall we?' The Doctor pulled, from his pocket, the tiny rectangle device. The Clara who had answered looked pleased with herself, whilst the other looked terrified.

The Doctor looked at the one who had answered and raised his sonic to her, his face stony and harsh. He ignited the sonic, bursting it into life, contrasting against the dead silence of the institute. The Clara screamed, flickered, and disappeared.

He turned to the other. 'Only had one shot, it'll see it coming next time.'

'You knew it was her?'

'Eventually.'

'How?'

'Call it me being a screaming genius.'

'I would, but I'm not to lie.'

'Oi!' he looked at her, smiling. 'She answered about something that was so tiny, so insignificant, you wouldn't have remembered. But a computer can store data and just rifle through it. She just had to look back through logs, camera footage, whatever, and see me putting it in my left pocket.'

'That's a bit of a risk.'

'It worked, didn't it?'

'I suppose.'

'Then don't knock it!' He shrugged his shoulders, preparing to move his lanky legs into action. 'On with the search!'

'To find what, exactly?'

He waved the chip. 'To find Adam!'

'Adam? Who's Adam?'

'An idiot, but he ended up here. I was going to reconcile with him.'

'Over what?'

'Kicking him out.'

The two moved to the desk, diving behind it again to search for anything helpful. They didn't have high hopes.

'What did he do to get kicked out?'

'Fiddled with technology beyond his time, got an implant in his forehead, went a little mental. Invented a one-stop time jump, came here and checked in. Smartest thing he ever did.'

'You didn't like him.'

'The person I was back then, I didn't like a lot of people,'

'Why?'

'Born in battle, lots of rage. I met someone, she helped me... but she's gone. Gone now.'

Clara looked at him with some degree of pity, mixed with curiosity. 'What was her name?' she asked. He stood up to meet her.

'Her name was Rose.' He smiled softly. 'I haven't seen her in a while. Not really.'

'She was important?'

'Oh yes...' he coughed. 'She was important. Clara noticed tears in his eyes, brought on by the guilt that was slowly crushing.

'Did you love her?'

He didn't respond. He couldn't. Not now. Not after seeing her like that. 'This place,' he said. 'It's triggered emotionally weighted memories. For me, it's you, Rose, the old TARDIS, the Master. For you, James. It's an emotional deathtrap.'

'And you think that's significant.'

'I think it's crucial. It told me it needs to feel. It's doing this to feel. And it's in some way psychic, so I think it's getting something out of us. Making us feel so it can.' He stood up. 'A creature built of humans, but it has no ability to feel human emotions. There's still something we're missing, though.'

'How this all started.'

'Exactly!'

'So what now?'

'Now,' he said. 'We go through there, look at it in the eye, and we use the plan.'

'What plan?'

'The genius, clever plan I have.'

'So you have a plan.'

'Absolutely, you should hear it some time, it's great.'

'What's the plan?'

'Brilliant.'

'But what do we _do_?'

'Anything. That's why it's brilliant. The plan isn't ours. It's the Light's. It's going to do something that we can't do anything about.'

'I'm failing to see how this is good.'

'It's going to get us, and when it does, we are going to show it the good in people. It's only gaining negative energy at the minute; fear, anger, sadness. It's only shown me a sliver of happiness, quickly followed by guilt. We need to show it happiness. When it captures you, let it, and focus your mind. Keep the happiest memory you can think of in your head. It can be anything.'

'Just happy?'

'Just happy. Think for a moment.'

She closed her eyes, bringing to mind a thousand thoughts, thinking. Remembering. 'Got it,' she whispered to the Doctor.

'Good,' he said. 'Because it's here.'


	6. E1C6: Adam

Turning to the cold, dark doorway that lead down the corridor they had taken earlier, Clara and the Doctor could just about make out, down in the depths of pitch black absence, a glimmer of light.

'That's it?' Clara asked.

'That's it. The Light. Remember what I said. You need to focus on your memory, keep it in your head.'

'Will that work?'

'I think so.'

'We're doing this on 'I think so'?'

'Yeah. Why? Got a problem?'

'Not at all.'

'Great.'

Their nervous conversation brought them to look at eachother, both braced for the Light to come and 'convince' them.

As it approached, the Doctor and Clara observed it's transformation. It's light seemed to compact, creating one solid shape. It was nearly human, with arms and legs and a distinguishable head, but it had no fingers, just solid hands, and no facial features. It was blank, and cold.

'You two are interesting,' it said.

'You're not too boring yourself,' the Doctor retorted. He held the life-long chip up in his hand. The Light cocked its head, curious.

'Did that belong to one of us?'

'Yes,' the Doctor said. 'One of you who knows me. Adam, you in there?'

'Adam was convinced.'

'Yeah, well, he would have been. I've got a question, though. How exactly do you go about convincing people?'

'We do not need to explain to you.'

'I'd appreciate it massively though,' he said, teasing it. 'Oh, and one more thing, why the pronoun-malfunction, eh? One minute it's 'I', the next it's 'we', where's the continuity?'

'I do not understand.'

'No, no you don't,' he said. 'But a person would. You don't flow. You're not organic. What are you then, Light? are you a program that gained sentience? A virus with a body? Or... oh.'

'Oh?' Clara asked.

'Oh. Oh that's clever.'

'Is it?'

'It's using the nanogenes. The tiny robots, nano-mites, little miniature doctors and nurses. Old technology. It's not a creature. iI's thousands of malfunctioning robots.'

'You are wrong,' it said, with the first hint of any emotion he'd heard come from it since they were in that pit together.

'No, I'm not. I'm very clever too, you see. So what, how did you come here? You're old-school tech, you shouldn't even exist anymore. It's like having a typewriter in a 50th century school. You're out-dated.'

'We were brought here with a girl.'

'A girl?'

'She brought us to show to her father.'

'A science project?'

'We were given the objective to make him feel.'

'He was insane?' Clara asked. 'So a little girl from the future made a few thousand robots and gave them her own idea, to try and cheer up her dad?'

'And they went too far,' the Doctor finished. 'I've seen it before, nanogenes going into overdrive, but this? Creating it's own, physical swarm-being, that's a new one.'

'We are not a swarm,' it said. The light pulled away around where the face was, revealing to Clara and the Doctor the face of a middle-aged man underneath, human, but with ridges in his forehead.

'Galvien,' the Doctor said. 'That species, it's called Galvien. A sub-species of human, with ridges like that all over the body, a kind of mutation in the bone which developed after cross-species breeding.'

'You're like a poke-dex for aliens, you are,' Clara said, smiling at him.

'I am a suit for father. We were brought to protect him and help him feel.'

'So you, what, adopted a way of stealing other people's minds, how's that?'

'Another person of the institute found us when we were merely swarm. Gave us new intelligence. Taught us how to take emotions and transfer them. It involves choice, which is why we must convince you.'

'We have to say yes, right?'

'Wrong. We have to feel you are convinced.

'Psychic?' Clara asked. The Doctor looked at her. 'What, like, it can just tell when you are convinced that it's right even when you say no?'

'Absolutely,' the Light said, the man's face still, as though asleep. The Light pulled back over it, snatching him away.

The Doctor put his hand into his pocket. 'But it's more than that, you could imitate people. Take memories and create images out of them, how did you do that?'

'We did not.'

'You didn't?'

'No.'

The Doctor looked surprised. 'Okay... But with Rose, down in the room?'

'It is difficult, but we can. But we did not impersonate the others. Not directly.'

'So who did?'

'The Dark.'

'The 'Dark'?'

'We are the Light. We protect our father, and we bring him emotion. The Dark steals memories and uses it to create emotions for us.'

'So you work together?'

'We take advantage of what it does, but we are not in allegiance.'

'So who is the Dark?'

'Me.' A voice from behind the Doctor. The Doctor and Clara turned on their heels to see it, but there was nothing there.

'What are you?' Clara shouted.

'I am the Dark. And the Light. I am the people of Broadplow Institute.'

'What did you do to them?'

'I installed them,' the voice rang down from the ceiling, as though coming from everywhere. 'We are all part of the same device. Those who were to stay, will stay forever.'

'And those who were just passing through?'

'Will be convinced.'

'Convinced of what?'

'That they saw nothing,' it said, with almost a chuckle in it's voice. It sounded neither male nor female, with hundreds of vocal tones hidden in it's words. 'They feed us, then they move on.'

'What happened between you and the Light?'

'It is an extension. A mere blip. A distraction, which is more noticeable than I. It protects without question, and I can feed it information to use against the likes of you.'

'You told it to become Rose?'

'I did.'

'Then it's you who is inside my head.'

'If I wanted to, I could take everything. For now, I have had snippets of your strongest memories, the ones which carry the most weight. The most guilt.'

'Then why don't you?'

'Because I remember you, Doctor.'

'You remember me?'

From nowhere, a boy appeared on the floor, in a small ball. He stood, looking into the Doctor's eyes.

Adam.

'I remember.'


	7. E1C7: The Modern Freakshow

Adam stood, squaring up to the Doctor. 'Do you have any idea what it was like for me?'

'You got the implan on your own accord, you did it to yourself.'

'No Doctor, this is on your head!'

The Doctor held back a small laugh. He didn't know why, but even now, after seeing everything that Adam had done, he couldn't help but see him as unthreatening, trying to be part of something bigger than himself.

'After I came here,' he continued. 'I thought I'd be safe. I thought I'd protect myself from people back on Earth, not being exposed to them every day. I came here for isolation. Instead I was put on show.'

'The tourists?' Clara asked, looking at him. 'I said this place was like a zoo.'

'That's exactly what it was. We were put on show. the freak-show of the digital age. And then, all of a sudden, this girl turns up with nanogenes. Finally. Something I can use outside my cell. We weren't patients, Doctor we were inmates. You sentenced me to this.'

'What did you do, Adam?' he asked, a warning in the voice he held.

'I used what was at hand. I took the life-long chip out of my head. I used the spike-input in my forehead, and I downloaded all of the information they had on me. It's amazing, in this century everything is compatible, no matter how old or what age it's from. It was too easy to break into the Institute's security system after that. The nanogenes were next. I programmed them to create a monster that would scare the tourists. I made a whole back-story, too. That it was her the girl's father who couldn't feel, so it channelled the emotions of the scared, weak little tourists. They bought it.'

'Why though? What was the point?'

'Information, Doctor. Information is everything. I had my own little kingdom here, and using the life-long chips, I could control the patients. Had them kill the people working here.'

'You turned an asylum into a feeding ground.'

'I did. And when they were gone, I used the patients as bait. Used their deaths as excuses for their family members to come. To mourn.'

'Because it wasn't all a lie about the emotions, was it?' Clara asked.

'How would you know, you pathetic little _human_.'

'Because you used it. You tried everything you could to break me, and the Doctor. But his mind was strong and you could only get the top layer of memories, right? So you do need them.'

'Oh, that's brilliant,' the Doctor whispered. 'That's just funny. It's pitiful more than anything!'

'What do you mean?' Adam asked, his face pale and cold.

'You've become more machine than human. You're a shadow of what you were, Adam.'

'I was never good enough. Not for you. Not for anyone. My mother hated me for what I did to myself. She saw me as a freak. I was laughed at.'

'So you became a killer.'

'So I took what was meant for me,' he said.

'But you were a coward,' the Doctor said. 'That was you. Fainting at the thought of action. You didn't have this in you.'

'Yes, well, I had help, Doctor. '

'Help? Help to what?'

'Help to take this place as my own. To have the Light carry out my every whim, terrifying those who wandered in. And then the TARDIS arrived.'

'And you realised that you could get a lot out of me,' the Doctor finished. 'Lots of rage in me. Lots of guilt.'

'Tasty,' Adam smiled.

The Doctor watched Adam, standing before them in the hall of his castle. 'I have control,' he said. 'I have absolute power, Doctor.'

'Yeah, and what are you gonna do about it?'

'I'll have him rip your throat out through your lungs.'

Behind the Doctor, the Light appeared. He took the Doctor by the arms, holding him up in the air. Adam walked up to him, smirking. 'Does that hurt?'

The Doctor cringed in the choke-hold the Light had him trapped in. He was going to suffocate.

Clara lunged at Adam, hitting him and taking him down, landing with a thump on the hard floor.

Adam tried to stand, but felt the world shaking under him. He was falling unconscious.

As he did, the Light dropped the Doctor and the nanogenes escaped, leaving possibly the last remaining patient of Broadplow Institute on the floor, asleep. Possibly dead.

The huge oak doors clicked and fell open, giving the Doctor a view of his Tardis, waiting for him.

They looked down at Adam, Clara climbing up. 'Is that it?'

'What do you mean?' The Doctor asked. 'He's still plugged into the system we need to get him far away from this place, to somewhere he can't hack or control...' the Doctor considered his options. 'Come on,' he said. 'You get his legs, we'll carry him into the TARDIS!'

'But... what if he wakes up? He can hack into it, can't he?'

'The TARDIS is much more complicated a system than this place,' he said, proud. 'He lied about that, too. Lied a lot.'

'What was he like, before this?'

'Oh, he was useless. Still is, really. Take away his wi-fi, and he's nothing. Just another twenty-something trying to be better than he is. Just another villain.'

'But he said he had help... Who do you think it was?'

'I have no idea,' the Doctor lied. He had some ideas. Some thoughts floating around. Nothing concrete or even likely,

They picked Adam up, dragging his rear along the ground, out the door and into the TARDIS control room. The Doctor remembered when the corridor had been masked to resemble the old console - that was how Adam remembered it.

They placed him down, and the Doctor got to work with taking Adam to the perfect location.

...

The TARDIS materialised.

'Is this the place?' Clara asked, leaving the TARDIS doors. 'This could be a bit cruel, you know.'

'Yeah, well, he killed a lot of people. He deserves cruel.'

'Do you really believe that?'

'Nope!'

Clara and the Doctor pulled Adam out onto the barren sand.

'How long do you think he'll last?'

'As long as he wants,' the Doctor said. 'This place is filled with food. Ready for hunting, collecting. Gathering.'

'I still think this is cruel.'

They took him next to a small tree, near which the forest started. It was strange, to Clara to see a forest so close to a dessert. To the Doctor, is was just another landscape. He could appreciate it's beauty once the job was done.

'I think here's good,' he said, putting Adam down softly. Clara dropped his legs.

'What now?'

'Now we go, on with the next task. The next adventure.'

'No more tourism, I think.'

'Possibly.'

The two boarded the TARDIS, flying off to explore new worlds and investigate new times.

Adam awoke on the sand, not a circuit board or wi-fi connection anywhere. He was lost.

'Adam,' came a voice.

'Sir?' Adam stood to attention, looking at his superior with fear.

'You failed.'

'Failed?'

'Your task was to use the Institute. Build a hoard of emotions.'

'I completed the task, sir.'

'No, no you didn't. There was an emotion you missed.'

'What was that?'

Adam's superior smiled. 'Joy.'

Adam nodded, accepting his mistake. He hadn't even looked up, before his eyes were robbed of light.

'Too much machine,' the man said, thinking. 'We need to re-evaluate our system.'

He disappeared as quick as he had come.


	8. E1C8: Dalek

'I feel like we shouldn't leave him,' Clara said. 'I mean, I know he killed those people, but shouldn't we take him to a prison or something?'

'If we did, he'd hack it. He's dangerous anywhere near technology.'

'So we just dropped him in the middle of nowhere?'

'Oh, he's somewhere.' The Doctor smiled. 'About half a mile into the forest, there are a group of creatures called the Mithli. Very friendly, they would welcome him gladly. they're very primitive, though. Nothing technological anywhere. The TARDIS translator seemed to still be working with him, so he'd be able to talk to them.'

'So this really is the best option?'

'I like to think so.'

'Should we go back?' Clara said. 'I still think like we should at least tell him the Mithli are there, so he can go. Give him a good-bye, Doctor.'

'Oh, I've had enough goodbyes, Clara. More than anyone. They're a pretty big part of me, actually. I don't plan on sending him any. He can work it out. He's clever enough to murder a building, then he's clever enough to survive with friendly creatures.'

Clara wasn't convinced, but knew the Doctor knew best. That if Adam was dangerous, which he was, then he should be kept away from everything possible.

'Doctor?'

'Yes!'

'...How did Adam read our minds? If he's able to hack technology then, okay, I get that, but _people_?'

The Doctor paused, thinking, and slammed the brakes on the TARDIS, pulling it back to the planet they had just left.

He stormed out of the TARDIS. 'We've been gone twenty seconds,' he said to Clara.

Adam's body was lying on the ground, but he had moved. They had put him on his back, and now he was slumped down, almost in a sitting position.

The Doctor crouched next to him, listening for breath. 'He's dead.'

'Dead?' Clara asked, shocked. She stared at him. 'How?'

'No idea,' the Doctor said. 'Whatever it was, it left no trace.' He stood up, looking down on Adam's cold corpse. 'We need to bury him.'

Clara emerged from the TARDIS holding a shovel. 'I got it,' she said.

'Where did you get that?'

'The garden.'

'What garden?'

'The garden in here!'

'I have a garden?'

'Uh-huh.' She threw it to him, and appeared with one of her own. 'Should we take him to the forest, in the dirt?'

'Yes,' he said bluntly. He was still examining. 'I don't understand. There's nothing. _Nothing_. People don't just die!'

'Maybe it was his help?'

'Help?'

'He said he had help, making him able to do this. If whatever help he got was, like, directing him, then maybe that's how he was psychic.'

'But what can make a human psychic?' The Doctor was whispering to himself, mumbling through his ideas.

'Doctor?'

He looked at Clara, standing. He nodded, and assisted her in digging a pit for Adam, on this alien planet.

Eventually, after having lowered Adam's body down with a canvas they found in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Clara stood over his grave, and decided to say some words. Clara went first.

'I only knew you half a day,' she said. 'And you terrify the hell out of me, Adam. You were a powerful creature. A powerful person. Human. You lived inside computers and technology, but you wanted to feel. To experience joy and hate and fear within your prison. that's very human, I think.' She sniffed back some tears. 'Bye Adam.'

The Doctor stepped forwards, allowing Clara to throw dirt down to Adam's wrapped-up body. 'You know, Adam, of all the people I expected to go insane after meeting me, you weren't high on the list.' He allowed himself a smile. 'You weren't good enough, you're right,' he said. 'I rejected you because you were a simple, human kid. You were young and innocent and naive, and look what I did to you. Yes, you murdered those people, and yes you ruined lives, but you did it, we're pretty sure at the orders of someone else. So I forgive you of that. Adam, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I dismissed you and left you somewhere with this technology you couldn't control. I'm sorry I didn't think of how I had effected you. I'm sorry for forgetting you. Forgive me, Adam.'

He stepped away, picked up some dirt, and tossed it in.

He got to filling in the grave alone, asking Clara to wait for him in the TARDIS.

'After what happened on Satellite 5, me and Rose explored, you know.' He told him. 'We saw so much. She saw the universe with me. I should have given you that chance more. Oh she loved it,' he smiled. 'She absolutely loved it. But, as ever, my past caught up with us and she was the one to pay.' He looked upwards, to the alien sky. Stars glowed upon the clouds, illuminating the darkening sky, turning it from blue to pink, to black. 'You became the past that came back, I suppose,' he said. 'I said I wouldn't give you a goodbye, but I will.'

The dirt of the grave slowly grew, coming up to him. Adam was buried under.

The Doctor silently filled the rest of grave in, left Adam's grave by planting a tree, native to the planet, as his headstone.

The TARDIS felt cold, and, even though it had been hours, Clara was waiting for him by the console.

'How're you feeling?' she asked.

'Like I need rest,' he said. 'I suggest you do the same. Go on, get some rest.'

'Yup,' she nodded. She didn't like him trying to dismiss her like that, but she knew the feeling of seeing someone who meant anything, _anything_, to you, become engulfed by dirt. She left to go to bed, the Doctor leaning against the console.

'Is this how they turn out?' he said. He was half talking to the TARDIS, half to himself. 'Is this what I do to them?' He looked up to the pillar of light, glowing at him. 'Do I ruin these people? My friends. These brave, brave civilians. I make them fighters. Warriors.' He thought of Rose; 'Protectors.' Martha; 'War-zone Doctors.' Donna; 'Mental wrecks.' Amy; 'Lost.' Rory; 'Responsible.'

And now Clara. And that's only since the war. The war that ruined his mind and trashed his soul.

Clara; 'Dalek.'

...

For Next Episode, copy this in after '.net' in the url: /s/9223636/1/Episode-2-The-Black-Forest


	9. E2C1: The Garden

'Where to now, Doc?' Clara looked at him. It was the next morning. 'What do we do?'

'Up to you, really.' He turned to her, his eyes red from lack of sleep. She wondered if he slept usually. And where? 'We have no leads on what happened to Adam, and who helped him, or why. Nothing.'

'Maybe something quiet?' she asked.

'I think we've deserved quiet.'

'So... well, when I was younger my parents liked to go camping. But it was always better with friends.'

'Am I a friend?'

'I hope so. I haven't got many.'

'Ridiculous.'

'There's more than one reason I want to travel. Besides, I didn't want any reason to stay around. I have my list.'

He looked at her with sad, old eyes. 'Camping?'

'Yeah!'

'Night skies, peaceful nights, grassy days. I hate the slow-road.'

'We won't even take the TARDIS,' she said. A nervous, almost disgruntled noise came from somewhere. The Doctor smiled.

'And you wonder why she doesn't like you.'

'I knew she didn't!'

'Like I said, a cat! Besides, I thought you were bonding?'

'Me too...' she pouted.

'Well, no more abandonment threats. She's my most faithful companion.'

He took to the controls, flying about the console. 'I know the most perfectest camping spot in the multiverse!'

'Where?'

'The Garden!'

'The garden? Wow.'

'What?'

'I was expecting, you know, otherworldly exploits!'

'This is otherworldly! It's a planet that is completely untouched by any sentient life. Passers-by come and go, great place for hiking, but no resident life aside from the plant life. It's name translates into English as 'The Garden'. How's that?'

'I guess I can put up with that,' she smiled.

She caught what she thought might be a short glimpse of hurt in the Doctor's eyes. Desperate not to insult him, she quickly backtracked. 'It sounds awesome, Doctor.'

'I know, right?!'

'Have you been here before?'

'A couple times, yes.'

'With your Granddaughter?'

'Yes, actually. Long time ago. She loved it.'

'What was her name?'

'Susan Foreman was the human name she used. I called her Susan, usually. She always wanted to be human.' He smiled. 'Maybe I picked that up.'

'I think she got it from you.'

'Not a chance. She was far too hard-headed to take anything from my side. She was all herself. I think I do that, though, sometimes.'

'What?'

'Do things, say things, that remind me of specific people.'

'Do you?'

'I think so.'

'Like what?'

'Well, anything. Stupid little things. But it's the little stuff that matters.'

The TARDIS landed with a _thud_ and a _screech_. The Doctor grinned at Clara, and she stood with him, opening the doors inwards, smelling the scents of a new world.

The Doctor stepped out, feeling the twigs snap between his shoe and the dirt. It stank of green, trees with golden brown bark stretching to touch the crimson sky above. The leaves reflected the blood-like glow against them, shining in the autumn.

'Welcome to The Garden. Where the skies change with the seasons, and the population of the whole world is limited to twenty at any one time. The whole world. This is exclusive camping.'

'It's beautiful.'

'It is isn't it?' He looked back to her, stretching out his arm. She looked almost scared to step out. 'Come on, then!'

She smiled, taking his hand, and stepped onto the deep red leaves. Her hand left his, and he turned away. 'It's autumn red at the moment. Shall we? I'll get the tent!' He turned back to the TARDIS but stopped when Clara was gone.

'Clara?' he looked into the TARDIS, around it. 'CLARA?!' he yelled. It echoed from the trees around him, bouncing back onto him from all over. A thousand screams of 'Clara', twisted by the repetition of his voice.

No answer.

'Why does this always happen?!' he moaned, getting into the TARDIS, preparing to trace her, when it disappeared too. In front of his eyes.

'Yet another unaccessible TARDIS and missing Clara. My life is getting repetitive. I've lived too long,' he mused, trying not to panic.

He looked around the scarlet forest, not sure what to do next.

'You exceeded capacity,' a metallic voice told her. Her eyes hurt, so she couldn't make out who it was. 'You shall be sent to our closest opening...' It whirred for a moment, before clicking to a stop. 'We have selected a destination. Winter sixteen-apple-B. Do you accept?'

'Wha...'

'Accepted.'

Her stomach churned as she was sent whirling away again, this time feeling the dirt against her cheek. She sighed, thinking she would be lifted by the Doctor to safety, and they could get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

But even when the hand gripped her arm, she knew it wasn't a concerned ancient man, picking her up to comfort her. It was too rushed.

'Come on!' said the voice, a woman's, pulling her up. Clara sat up, and was yanked upwards and dragged along behind this strange woman, through a forest that was far different from the one she had left.

She was expecting scarlet leaves and crimson skies, but instead there was darkness. The sky was the deepest blue it might as well have been night, and the sun seemed to glow a dim grey. The trees were bare of leaves, and the woman pulled her arm, pleading her to move forwards.

'Run, you idiot!' she shouted, before letting go of Clara and making a break for it. Not sure what else she could do, she chased the running woman through the trees, desperate not to get lost.

'Where are we going?' she called out.

'This way!' the woman called back. She kept running, leading Clara deeper into the wood, thinks of trunks getting closer together, closing in on her.

'Why are we running?!'

'They'll drain you dry if they get you!'

'What will?!'

But the woman was gone. Clara couldn't see her anymore. The trees had become too close to each other. She had slowed to a crawl to move between them. She might as well have been moving between the cracks of a wooden block.

She wished the Doctor was there with her.


	10. E2C2: The ICC

She had to keep running. She had no way back, now. The trees had gotten far too thick, though, and she was reduced to a slow run, which crawled to a walk, then to a literal crawl.

Her legs burned.

Branches stuck to her clothes, dragging at her.

She had a cut on her face from a thorn that had sliced her cheek open.

Her breath was too loud. It gave her away.

'Bloody hell,' she said under her breath, as her hand fell through the bed of dead leaves and dirt she was crawling over, into a small pit large enough to swallow her entire hand. 'What the...'

She tried to pull it out, but she could feel something clinging to her, holding her under.

_Ok,_ she thought. _Now I can panic._

She could hear it now, the shuffling. Something was moving, coming towards her. The trees stopped her from seeing anything past five metres, though.

She could just hear it.

Her arm was being pulled downwards so hard, however, that she had to take her mind of the mountainous footsteps and try to get her arm back.

She, in a moment of panicked stupidity, pushed down her other arm to try and get the first out, and soon realised her mistake as she was pulled downwards to the shoulders.

The strain on her neck was searing; it felt like she was going to snap backwards. Whatever it was pulling on her arms, it seemed to get a boost of energy and manage to the full top of her body into the dirt, taking her under with a muffled scream.

The hands dragged her downwards, and all she could think was _what if I don't get to say goodbye. What if, one day, back on Earth, I just didn't come home?_

But light started to breath through the brown, and she was greeted with the sight of six people pulling on her arm, all standing on a platform to get up to the dirt ceiling.

They lowered her down, coughing and spurting mud from her lips, dragging it from her eyes.

'Hello?' one of the people asked, a man, maybe in his thirties. Human. A woman, the woman Clara had seen earlier, hung at his elbow. They watched her, looking for signs of life.

'Hi,' she said, trying to smile.

'Oh thank God!' the woman said, releasing a breath. She rushed forwards, taking Clara in an embrace that was tight but comforting. Clara accepted it, hugging away the fear that was only slightly passing.

'Erm, where am I?' she asked.

'Under the dirt, in a cave,' the woman said. 'I'm Loa, what's your name?'

'Clara.'

'Hi Clara!' the woman was younger than the man, in her mid twenties. They were the only two humans (aside from her) in the room.

There was a humanoid, Clara would say, who seemed somewhere between male and female, with yellowy-brown skin, but no eyes. It had slightly concave sections on it's face where eyes should be, with a prominent bone structure that made it seem dramatic and intense. It didn't help that it was staring at Clara with it's eyeless gaze.

'That's Poluinithui,' the woman said.

'Pol-what now?'

'Poluinithui. Call her Polly.'

'Okay! Polly, hey there,' Clara waved. Polly didn't acknowledge her at all. There was a sleeping mass under a cloak in the corner, whose breath was quiet and soft. Nobody even looked over.

'She's not in the most talkative mood,' Loa said. 'He son is up top. We lost him.'

'Lost him?'

'You heard the footsteps,' the man said. 'Whatever it is, it takes us.'

'Takes who?'

'Us. Campers, like me and Loa. Hikers. Sightseers. Any one. We haven't even seen it. It's just the footsteps and if you fall behind...'

'Don't scare her, Kel,' Loa said.

'Scare her? We just pulled her underground on an alien planet she obviously doesn't know.'

'But,' Clara said. 'Why would this place be open? To the public, I mean.'

'What, with giant, people stealing creature roaming around?' Polly said. 'No idea.'

'And what's with the sky? It was red a minute ago,' Clara said, remembering being with the Doctor.

'No, it's only red in the Autumn. This is Winter,' Kel told her.

'Well, how long does it take to change season?'

'Seven hundred days.' He looked at her. 'We've been here for months, and there's no difference. A black sky, and constant footsteps. The only safe place is underground.'

'In this cave?'

'Yes.'

'But there are five of us.'

'And there are fifteen out there, we know.'

'So... how do we save them?'

'Save them?'

'Well, that's what we do. My friend and me. The Doctor. We save people.'

'You came here to save us?'

'Actually, we came here for a camping trip, but now we might as well!'

'Well thanks for the confidence,' Polly interjected.

As the heat from the two burning moon overheard beat down on the Doctor, even his night was uncomfortable.

The Garden, you see, was a haven of life for two reasons; 1) it had the perfect amounts of heat, light and water during it's seasons and 2) it had no major predators or threats to other life. The only thing that hunts trees here is other trees, looking for space for roots. It's a food race.

At night, the two moons that had set alight hundreds of years ago watched over the garden. The sun had died a long time ago, and so the first and only major outside influence on this world had taken place. The Intergalactic Conservation Committee had deemed that The Garden was a landmark and deserved conservation through any means, and so set light to the methane moons to create a synthetic sun.

The ecosystem had adjusted accordingly, over the decades.

Of course, the Doctor didn't care.

He didn't care about the moons.

He didn't notice the trees hunting each other slowly.

He didn't think about the I.C.C.

All he could focus on was Clara, and how he had lost her. He had lost her again.

The Garden didn't have a 'base of commands', as there were no commands to give. The only regulation was of the people who got in or out, twenty at a time.

He followed the trace that the Sonic Screwdriver gave him. He was going to find the closest people to him. And he was going to find a way out.

The TARDIS may have relocated, again. He really needed to change that back.

For now the soft buzzing lead him off into the forest. He knew it was a dangerous area, mainly for the possibility of getting lost in the thick trees.

As he progressed, the buzzing slowed into a beeping that signified how far away he was. The closer the life-form, the faster the beeping.

He stood over a slight lump of dirt and pointed the screwdriver in every direction, trying to distinguish where the life form was. He span around, and pointed it up, and then down, hearing the beeping increase only a little.

Crouching made the beeping increase further, and he decided that there was probably something under him. Stopping the screwdriver, he instead pulled from his pocket a small device that, when folded out, resembled a shovel, to which he grinned and started to dig.

About a foot into the earth his hand poked through into open space.

'Do I have to dig?' he asked, looking at the hole. 'I have to dig,' he decided.


	11. E2C3: Polly's Pocket

Breaking through the dirt, the Doctor emerged, head down, into a small cavern. His arms and head hung from the ceiling, waving around slightly as he tried to scope the area.

He managed to get the majority of his body through, before he realised that he no way of getting down.

He dropped like a gangly, multi-limbed sack of potatoes onto the rock floor, and bounced up, expecting someone to point and laugh.

Nodding at his own achievement, he wiped some of the dirt that had matted his hair and started scanning the cavern for the life-signs the screwdriver had picked up earlier.

It drew him to a small crack in the wall, maybe a half-foot thick. He approached it cautiously, not certain what it is that could be inside. Waiting for him. Or cowering? Hunting?

'Hello?' he said, making his presence known. He heard a shuffle. 'I'm the Doctor.'

'The Doctor?' came a voice. It was old, rusty. 'You're the Doctor?'

'Yes. You've heard of me? Have we met?'

'No, no. I knew a friend of yours.'

'Oh really? Who?'

'Clara Oswald,' said the voice. The Doctor frowned.

'How do you know Clara?'

'She came here, the winter before last. Out of nowhere. No bracelet, no idea where she was. All she talked about was you.'

The Winter before last?

'Where is she, do you know?' the Doctor thought that, even if she had spent a while here, he could still save her. This was Amelia all over again, waiting for him.

'She's gone,' the voice in the wall said.

'Gone?'

'She died, Doctor. I'm sorry. You missed your chance.'

The Doctor swallowed.

'What's your name?' he asked the wall.

'Poluinithui,' it said. 'Call me Polly.'

'Right, well, Polly. I want you to come with me, because something very wrong is going on here and I need to get out. I'm going to the top... as soon as I get my box back. Have you seen it? It's a big blue box, light on top, in a bad mood?'

'I can't come.'

'Okay, well, that's fine. I can come back for you, if you stay here?'

'No, I cannot move. You don't understand,' Polly said. 'I have been merged by The Garden.'

'Merged?'

'The Garden, Doctor, is always starving. A thing of life needs a source. It became greedy. So they sustained it... with us.'

'What?'

'I am being slowly eaten by this world, Doctor. The footsteps found me, and I was taken here, and I was fed to it. I am barely alive.'

'Oh, Polly...'

'Don't you start. Clara gave me enough sympathy before she disappeared.'

'She disappeared?'

'Yes. Assumed dead.'

'So she might not be?'

'I suppose...'

'Hope! I have hope!'

'Must be nice,' she said sharply, still little more than a voice in a wall to the Doctor. He couldn't see for the darkness.

'Look, I'll find a way to save you, Poluinithui. I'll save you and everyone else who have been fed to this world.'

'Don't bother,' Polly sighed. 'It's strangely peaceful, actually. I just wish it was more of a choice, rather than, you know, making me dinner, shoving me in the pocket of space.'

'I'm coming back,' the Doctor said, looking upwards. 'As soon as I figure out how to get out.'

'There's an exit,' Polly said. 'Behind that stone. It goes to a tunnel, it will lead you out into a clearing.'

The Doctor could see the large stone, and even the gap poking out behind it. 'Thank you.'

'No problem,' Polly said, reserving herself to her fate

The Doctor struggled with the rock for a moment, before finding a way to edge it across and fit his failing body through the gap, running down the tunnel to the clearing.

'So... what now?' Clara asked.

'What do you mean 'what now'?' Loa asked in that sweet tone she had.

'Well, what do we do now?'

'Nothing. We wait. We do runs to collect food once a day, and that's how I saw you. That makes it Kel's turn tomorrow, but we don't leave the cave.'

'Why?'

'The footsteps,' Loa said. 'They kind of imply a larger thing.'

'But this is The Garden, right? No predators, just plants...'

'But what if it is a plant?' the black mass in the corner breathed. Loa, Kel and Polly all looked to it slight fear.

'A plan with feet?' Clara asked.

'There are moving cacti,' the mass said. 'And singing vines. Some worlds have flowers that sprout wings to find where they should pollinate and grow. Others have plant that show only a small portion above ground, with colonies of things living within their roots. Why not walking trees?'

'But it sounds huge...' Clara said. 'Actually... no. It's not footsteps.'

A loud boom came from above.

'How can you say that? Kel asked.

'Because we would feel it,' she said. 'A footstep would shake us. That's... yeah, a booming kind of ominous noise, but it's not a footstep.'

'Trust me,' Polly said. 'It's a footstep.'

'I'll prove it,' Clara smiled. 'Where's the way out?'

'Behind there,' Loa pointed to a rock. 'You're not going out there, are you?'

'Of course I am,' Clara said. 'I can't stay cooped up in here. Chances are, you lot have been hiding under here scared of nothing.'

'But they disappear,' Polly said. 'Whatever is walking around up there is taking people. It took...' She stopped, and Clara watched her solemnly.

'Well then,' she said, pushing against the rock. 'If I find anything, I'll bring him to you.' Clara smiled. 'We help, like I said.'

'You and your Doctor?'

'My and my Doctor,' Clara said, eventually getting the rock to shift enough to get through, with a little help from Kel.

She followed the stone tunnel out into a small clearing, where the booming 'footsteps' seemed to have walked past. The sounds were behind her, slowly fading to nothing.

She walked out into the clearing, following the steps. Eventually, if it was a creature, or even a plant, it would have to stop. Something like that would have to rest, surely?

Clara followed it into the trees, leaving the clearing, back into the thick, almost solid woods. After hours, the navy sky became black, and the two balls of fire in the sky set. The night was freezing, and she had nowhere to go for warmth.

Huddling down in a small gap between two roots of a large tree, she cuddled up as much as he could, into a tight ball, and closed her eyes. She slept in batches. For a few hours, she'd sleep, then for an hour she'd lie awake, thinking about where she was. The Garden was an awful place.


	12. E2C4: Coward

Emerging out into the clearing, the Doctor thought over Polly's words. Clara had been here for over a year, if she was right. A year in a world that ate it's inhabitants. And they wondered why there was nothing but plants here.

Poly had been a bust. No bracelet he was going to get there. He needed a back-up. He needed a way out. He needed to find 'they'; whoever it was who was feeding these people to the trees. And how were they doing it?

Over and over, the Doctor recited all the adventures he'd had. The life-threatening monsters. The tragic goodbyes. The running. The fire and the heat. Adrenaline and cowardice. Saving lives and dooming his friends. Everyone he'd ever loved, gone.

So many people had come and gone. It was, of course, all his fault.

He wondered for a moment exactly what percentage of the universe's death toll over all was his fault. He'd committed genocide, after all. Several times, if you count deleted timelines. He'd murdered and manipulated. He was the monster, after all.

But he was a monster with responsibilities. And he was not going to let Clara die here.

He had to save her.

It was his job.

He'd told her that._ It's what we do_. And she had been happy to jump into the danger, to travel with him. She had barely questioned it. She wasn't suspicious of him, of his past.

She should be.

Heroes are fairy-tales, after all. Bad stories that don't age well. A questionable moral and a twisted secret. Heroes are monsters.

But this wasn't a story about him chasing after his own issues. He'd run away from that his whole life, he wasn't about to turn back now. Maybe he should.

_Coward._

This story was about Clara. What she was. The mystery surrounding an ordinary girl who jumped into a world she didn't understand, and was going to die again. First in fire, then in ice. Now she would die in his hands, or at least to his fault.

When was it not his fault?

He thought too much.

The Doctor moved forwards, as the moons burned over-head. The sky a blood-red, hauntingly hanging over him.

This was supposed to be a camping trip.

He took out the sonic screwdriver and scanned, this time ignoring the signals pointing to Polly. Changing the parameters from 'heartbeats', he had it scan for anything that was not plant-life. He got an instant blip directly in front of him. Into the trees.

He smiled and started off, tripping several times over roots and fallen branches, into the dense woodland.

The beeping grew in volume as he head in a direction, until he could see the mass of clothes maybe thirty metres in the distance, where the trees had thinned out a little. He could only just see it, but he was sure that was her jacket.

His stomach dropped.

He raced over, as fast as he could, falling once over a thick, purplish branch that caught on his shirt, swinging him down. He lost his balance and sense of direction, forgetting which way the coat was in.

Walking in circle, he managed to locate it from a distance, and whilst he knew he should have raced over, he couldn't. He stopped dead.

He could see her red shoulder bag, glinting out of the dirt, with her jacket under it.

The steps he took were soft, barely breaking twigs as he moved. He had never been so gracious in his life, he thought. And that's a long time.

Navigating the trees and the leaves, he came to the jacket, and quickly found it was empty. Clara wasn't there.

So why...

He looked at his screwdriver, which was still beeping away, as though she was right here. Or, as though something was.

That's when he heard it. The sound he had heard everyday, every moment. The sound of everything and everywhere.

The howling song of the TARDIS filled the woods, as the Doctor saw it flash, flickering into existence over Clara's jacket and bag. The Doctor reached out, trying to grab on, remembering how Jack had done it that time.

But his fingers fell through, like he was trying to catch smoke. It was on the wrong side of materialisation.

He hoped for a second that the screwdriver was picking up Clara, but when the TARDIS left, the beeping stopped. It was picking up the TARDIS; a life-form outside of plant life.

He looked down to Clara's jacket, rifling through the pockets. He felt slightly bad for it, but kept going anyway.

In her bag he found her purse, within which was a photo of her mother. She would never leave this.

She'd left in a hurry.

He picked up the bag and the jacket, opening his bigger-on-the-inside pockets, and dropping them in (with a squeeze).

If something had caused her to leave her things like this, it must have been a surprise. Something she couldn't escape.

The Doctor thought back to times when new enemies had come to light. He could remember the steel walls enclosing on him when he Dalek drones poisoned him. He could feel the rocks of caves and the waves of air. Every moment of his life flowed through him. The fear. The loss. The love. Family and friends. Creatures and wonder and travelling and fantasy. At a price.

'Stop whining,' he scorned himself. He continued forwards, occasionally hearing the TARDIS half-materialise somewhere. Leading him. Taking him somewhere.

Eventually the trees thinned, turning more into bush-life, where the grass, green and silky, had grown tall and shielded the bright moons from view.

Wind brushed over him for the first time, making the towers of emerald shimmer all around. It was truly beautiful.

The TARDIS lead him, vaguely, through the thick grass clearing to a space where the grass was much calmer, as thought it was cut and kept in nice condition routinely. That shouldn't be there.

The noise of the TARDIS cut out, leaving the Doctor alone. In a field which shouldn't exist.

He could see something glinting, a bracelet in the grass. He smiled, bounding over. As he picked it up, he slipped it over his thin wrist and pushed the button on the side...

Nothing.

He was expecting a teleport, or a hologram, or something. But no, there was nothing.

He took it off and 'sonic'ed it, finding that rain had made it useless. Probably the reason why whoever had it threw it off. He was able to dry it with the sonic, forcing out the moisture. A small cloud puffed out of the button on the bracelet, and he tried it again. This time he felt a buzz, and energy started to build, like a sort of static cloud around him.

A crack of lightning later, he was gone.


	13. E2C5: A Tin Box

The floor his knees hit was metal.

He smiled.

He was off The Garden.

Opening his eyes, he saw that he was in a small room, with twenty round lights on the ceiling. One for each person of the population.

Before him stood a door, slightly opened, waiting for him. He exited the room, stepping into a glass box that stood a hundred feet above the trees of The Garden. The floor and three walls were built of glass, then the door behind him, and the dull grey ceiling low overhead.

'Hello?' he called out, unable to take his eyes away from the breathtaking views. Everywhere around him was a green sea of life, honest and pure, beautifully quiet.

'Member,' came a voice, robotic. 'What is your name?' It was a small box that hovered at head-height, having one grate at the front, a speaker to talk.

'Ah a robot, excellent. So this is ground control?'

'What is your name?'

'Oh, you're not scripted are you?'

'What is your name?'

'You're no fun.' The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver, soniced the box, and smiled. 'Now,' he said. 'Tell me why you are feeding people to this planet?'

'Feeding is not an order.'

'So, you're not feeding them?'

'Negative.'

'What are the footsteps?'

'There is nothing sentient on The Garden but the Members.'

'Where is Clara Oswald?'

'She was put on The Garden.'

'When?'

'Winter sixteen-apple-B.'

'Send me there.'

'Unable.'

'Why?'

'You would exceed capacity.'

'Right, so there are twenty people already down there?'

'Affirmative.'

'Then bring someone up and send me down in their place.'

'Unable.'

'Why?'

'Telebands must be activated by user.'

'There must be a way...' The Doctor looked at the box, floating near his head. 'Where is my TARDIS?'

'Unrecognised life-form was incompatible with teleport.'

'Well, it would be,' the Doctor said. 'So it's stuck, somewhere in the time stream, trying to get through. That means there has to be some kind of bubble... lock...' he frowned. 'That can't be a coincidence.'

'Coincidence?'

'I saw a bubble lock the last place I was. That can't be... but how. How would someone be able to predict me like that... I'm getting predictable.'

The box floated silently, as though watching him.

'Do you know what I'm going to do?' The Doctor asked it.

'No,' it responded.

'I'm going to do nothing. Never expect that, eh? WILL YOU!' he shouted to nothing. He stood for a moment. 'Is that long enough?'

'I'm not certain,' the box said.

'So, something has a lock around the TARDIS. Usually silly against my sonic, but I didn't know what I was aiming at. Now, however...' He smiled, looking to the box. 'Beam me back down!'

'Negative.'

'What, why?'

'You could exceed capacity.'

'But... I... What if you escorted me there, not as a Member, but as a technician. I can fix the glitch in the system that's taking up a fine spot of the population. Don't count me, I'll get rid of it, you get more income, I go off to save Clara.'

'You would not have clearance.'

'What, where Clara is?'

'Affirmative.'

'Then give me clearance!'

'Unable.'

'Fat lot of good you are. I'm shouting at a box. A TIN BOX! I want my box back. It's blue and big and useful,' he moaned. 'I love my box.'

'You could restore your ship and then fly to this box at Winter sixteen-apple-B. There you could try and convince me, in the past, to let you down to save your Clara.'

'Would you?'

'Unable to confirm. Timestreams are undecided. Flux point in time.'

'Okay, so I can change things,' he smiled. 'That makes thing simpler!'

'In what way?'

'I can go back further. Interrupt the stream. Timey-Wimey. The Garden is a place of great beauty because it's leaking, of course. It's loose. Time's loose. That's how the TARDIS slipped out of sync. And then someone locked it out. I'll get there later. Now, we save Clara!'

'Affirmative.' The box started to whir.

The Doctor watched it, curious, until a right white light overtook the glass room. From outside, it seemed to explode into a supernova, a burst of fire and light, but the glass remained in tact. Trees swayed slightly with the force.

The Doctor awoke, face down in the dirt. He grimace, taking a dead leaf in his mouth, before bouncing up and clawing it out.

'Where are we, at the site?' he asked.

'It is moving,' the box said. 'Follow.' The box hovered away, fairly quickly, making the Doctor chase after it.

For a while they had no indication that they were close, but eventually, as the trees started to thicken again, they could hear it. Thumps, like footsteps.

It was the TARDIS.

What?

How could it be the TARDIS, taking people to places where they'd be eaten by the earth?

He decided that would be a question he'd ask it directly, as they came to face it's flickering blue shape.

The Doctor soniced it, washing it in green waves, bringing it into a more solid shape, slowly. He had to stay there, and it was possibly the longest he'd ever just stood and held the sonic straight at something.

His face was iron, his jaw clenched. They didn't have to be, but he didn't want to think about what would happen if the crack it was stuck in closed, and left the TARDIS on the other side.

After maybe ten minute, the TARDIS eventually, with a ear-splitting CRACK, materialised fully onto the called leaves. He smiled and stepped inside, waving goodbye to the tin box.

'Right then,' he said. 'To Winter sixteen-apple-B.'


	14. E2C6: Wood

'We can't just let her go!' Loa yelled. Kel retreated, unable to look her in the eye. 'We can't leave her out there alone. She doesn't even have a bracelet! She can't get anywhere!'

'Loa,' Kel said, as softly as he could. 'That girl was determined to go out... and you know what happens. People are going missing... the footprints are all over the place, like it's searching for us.'

'But she's alone! I'm going after her.'

'Loa, no you're not.'

'Who the hell said you get to decide for me!' she yelled. Polly remained silent, as did the mass in the corner, hidden under a black blanket.

'Loa, I'm not letting you go out there alone.'

'Then come with me. Help me with this rock.' She started to push it aside, Kel watching. 'Help me!'

'Loa, we can't-'

'I'm not leaving her out there. No. Not like we didn't go back for Polly's son.'

Kel said nothing, but moved over and started to push with her, moving it easily. It was light for a rock. Loa ran out first, and Polly waved to them as Kel chased after her.

'Loa!' Kel yelled, running behind her. Loa has a great nose for this, she was chasing Clara's scent easily against all the chlorophyll.

'Clara?!' Loa yelled. She stopped dead, letting Kel catch up with her. 'She was here a while ago.' Loa looked up to the new morning sky. 'Probably stayed here last night. Poor girl.'

'Which way did she go?' Kel asked her.

Loa sniffed the air, turning in a circle before catching it. She bolted, lizard like, to the left. Kel followed as best he could, into the trees, through bushes and low-hanging branches. Fruit flew past him, twigs scratching his cheeks as they tore through The Garden, searching for her.

It was half an hour before they heard the first one. A footstep. A booming, thick sound that stopped Loa dead. She looked back to Kel, who caught her in a hug.

'What if they got her?' Loa asked him into his shoulder. 'What if...'

'Loa, we'll get her. She'll be okay.'

'But what if she's not!'

Another footstep. It sounded closer.

'Clara was right,' Kel said. 'It's not shaking the ground. It's not a footstep.'

'But what could it be?' Loa whispered. She wasn't sure if it was better or worse to know it wasn't a footstep. Not some huge, tree-like giant. No massive creature. Just a sound. A sound that follows people who get lost in the woods.

A scream.

'Clara!' Loa yelled. She shot off, Kel close behind, into a clearing where they could see Clara as she stood, staring into space. Something was wrong.

She looked too tall.

'Clara!' Loa and Kel both yelled, but she didn't answer. She just stood there. Hovering.

They only stopped a few meters away, when they saw her eyes. They were open, but without pupils. White. Ghostly.

She hovered above the ground, stunned into a statue.

Loa approached slowly, wanting to touch her. She reached out, and Kel screamed too.

She spun back, and saw Kel elevating into the air. Maybe a foot off the ground, he stopped.

'Kel?' Loa whispered staring at him. His eyes had glazed over, a pale grim white. His face was slack.

She almost walked over to him, but knew that there was something doing this to him and Clara.

She felt a jab in her back.

She screamed.

The world peeled into white, and she felt the weight lift off her feet.

She knew she was in the same position as Clara and Kel. She knew she was hovering over the thick grass, that there was something in there hunting her.

But there was nothing here but the plants. And the booms. Was it that?

No, she hadn't heard anything near her. It was something else.

But what?

Polly couldn't do anything from here. She looked to the mass, in the corner. 'What happened to you... I know it was awful, but...'

'You want to know if I saw what did it?' it said, it's voice thick and rustic.

'Yes.'

'No, I didn't. I didn't hear it either. It wasn't whatever has started making those noises. It was before those had even started.'

'So, what was it?'

'I have no idea. I suspect a carnivorous plant.'

Polly looked at it. 'Can I remove the blanket?'

'It's there for you, not me, Polly.'

'Who put it there?'

'Kel did, when they found me. They could hear me moaning, and they tried to save me. No chance.'

'What are you?'

'I am dead, Polly.'

Polly moved over to it, standing of the lump, in the corner. Now she looked, she could see it breathing. Shifting every now-and-again.

'I'm going to.'

'Okay,' the mass said. 'Prepare yourself, dear.'

'I'm fine.'

'Go on, take a look.'

Polly grasped the blanket and, for a second, thought about not looking at all, But she felt like it was going to change something. She felt like it would enlighten her in some way.

She pulled the blanket off.

Beneath it lay a disfigured, half-rotten figure of a young man. He started at her, not in pain, but in pity. He pitied her.

From his head downwards there was little but root. The tree had a vine wrapped entirely around him, dragging him into the plant-life mess that was his lower abdomen. He was almost unrecognisable.

'You okay?' he wheezed.

'I'll live,' Polly said, not convincing even herself. 'What did this to you?'

'I don't know. Something powerful. I was in the middle of nowhere one second, then here the next. I couldn't move. I was stunned and then, I was eaten. It slowly took me over.'

The wood that had claimed most of his body creaked under his movement. He cringed. 'It's not too bad,' he said. 'It's peaceful. Whatever it is, it's not putting me in pain. Which is nice, I suppose. All things considered.'

'You're being eaten by a tree,' Polly raised her eyebrow.

'I am. And soon I will be the tree itself. I'll be fine.' He seemed to believe that, too. That he was fine for being eaten by a tree. 'Go, Polly. They need you. The longer you stay here, the more chance you have of getting caught. And you might turn out like me. Go on, Polly.' He smiled to her. 'I'm not going anywhere.'

Polly tried not to show how much it upset her to leave as she pushed the rock aside. But it was her job to go and get Clara, Loa and Kel.

She wasn't outside for long.


	15. E2C7: Four Things and a Lizard

The TARDIS materialized in the same field Clara, Loa and Kel had all been stunned and held in. The Doctor saw the sight from his console monitor, and new it was a message to him.

He walked out slowly, into the grass. There was no-one but the levitating bodies before him. He smiled. Clara was alive. Stuck, but alive.

'The Doctor.' A man walked up to him, emerging from the trees. His skin was chalk-white, with red lips and a cold smile. He wore a black coat that trailed the floor, hiding his legs. His chest was covered in what seemed to be leather.

'Do I know you?' The Doctor watched him approach.

'You shouldn't, no. But I know some things about you.'

'Oh really?'

'Like your weak spots.' He looked to Clara. 'Your friends are the best parts of you. So what happens when we start taking them and ruining them, I wonder?'

'Adam,' he said, nodding. 'You were the help.'

'In a way,' he said. 'Forgive me, I haven't introduced myself.'

'You don't have to. All you have to do is get them down. Now.'

'Oh, I do?'

'Yes,' the Doctor looked at him, his eyes burning. 'You do.'

'Well, I would, only I have a proposition to make you that's far more interesting. I want to prove something to you.'

'What?'

'I want to prove that you don't need a monster to ruin your friends,' the man said. 'A friend of yours is waiting your need right now, in the year two thousand and eight.'

'What are you doing?'

'Me? Oh, nothing. Just proving a point, like I said.'

'I've changed my mind,' the Doctor said. He soniced Clara and the two hovering people next to her, and they opened their eyes and dropped. 'I want to know your name.'

The man seemed surprised. 'You knew the frequency?'

'Repetitive bubble-locks. Nice trick. Fancy. But easy to break once you know what you're dealing with. Your name?'

'Sephiro.'

'Sephiro?' The Doctor looked at him. 'Well, Sephiro. I want you to know something about me.' Clara, Loa and Kel all started to stand, rubbing their eyes. 'I'm the guy hidden alien societies are scared of. I'm the man monsters tell horror stories about. I'm the beginning and the end of things. You wanted pain in the institute? Take it. What do you want here, because you can take it. I'm done fighting, but I'll rip you apart if you bring another soul into this.'

'That was dramatic.'

'... thank you.'

'Alas, Doctor, I'm not here to make jokes or to give monologues,' he pulled a pistol, one reminiscent of an old human one, but with a glowing red tip, prepared to fire a super-heated pellet. 'I'm here to motivate you to do things right.'

Seripho shot Clara, hitting her directly between the eyes. The pellet scorched out of the other side of her, leaving a bloody, hot trail in it's wake.

She dropped to the floor.

'Clara!' The Doctor screamed, dropping down next to her, catching her head. He held her, fighting back tears when Seripho wondered over.

'I can fix her,' he said.

'Fix her. Now.'

'I would. But you said no to our little idea, so... sorry.'

'What is it. I'll do it.'

'Will you? Well, that's inconsistent.'

'Tell me.'

'Go to one of your past friends. Might have travelled with you, might not have. They're having some trouble and I want you to see that even you can't save everyone. That the people you leave behind face consequences. You swan off to the farthest reaches of the universe, but the little people you leave behind have to deal with the cracks you create.'

'Where.'

'Earth. Two thousand and eight. Anyone, Doctor, you can think of.'

'Why are you doing this?'

'Because we had to rethink things after Adam. He was our emotional scout, and you ruined that. Here we had a little experiment looking into Human biology, but you ruined that, too. This time we're looking into our one adversary; you.'

'This was an experiment?'

'Isn't everything?'

'You sick, twisted creature.'

'Yes, maybe. But this time, you'll have to do things our way. And we'll know. We'll be watching. Playing ball with terrorists, Doctor. Naughty naughty.'

'Sephiro, please take her and help her. Or let me take her.'

'Begging? Please...'

'Sephiro,'

'Oh you're boring!' he pulled the gun to Loa's head, holding it over her. Loa trembled. Kel looked at Sephiro in quiet fury, unable to move still. He was hurting too much at his legs. 'Maybe we could make things even more interesting, eh Doctor?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean that you have gotten in our way a few too many times, now. And by that, I mean twice. This being the second.'

'In the way?'

'I assume you were going to try and stop out experiments?'

'Of course I was. You're feeding people to a planet.'

'False! We're actually feeding people through a planet. The trees get a slight snack, but the genetic and psychic information goes straight into the clouds.'

They looked up. The grey, swirling clouds howled above them.

'Ever wonder why they change with the weather?'

'Because you feed people through, and in the winter they're scared, cold.'

'Makes the clouds dark and damp, yes. Then, in the summer, the heat gets to people. Makes them happier overall. brightest blue. And then Autumn and spring in the middle. Gorgeous, don't you think?'

'It's awful! You're farming people!'

'For science!'

'Oh, you don't even deserve to talk to me right now.'

Seripho moved the gun, shaking in front of Loa's face. She whimpered. 'Go get your friend, Doctor.'

The Doctor stood, looking down at Clara, feeling a rage within him he could barely hold back.

'You save your friend, you get her back. If you can't, you get her back anyway. I just want you to experience it, Doc.' Seripho smiled. 'Good luck!'

The Doctor walked away, into the TARDIS, and, just as he was about to close the door, Seripho felt the need to talk again; 'Oh, and Doctor?'

'What?' he asked without looking back.

'Don't blink.'

The Doctor slammed the door, and set off to 2008, to see someone he'd only met once, briefly, whilst taking care of four things and a lizard.


	16. E3C1: Sally Sparrow

The Doctor threw the controls to the TARDIS around, more in anger than anything, furious that he had been forced to leave Clara.

But he had taken too many chances with her. He wasn't going to let her die again. He wasn't going to let that mad Seripho let her die. Not a chance.

So he head to Earth, 2008, to a small shop he'd visited once, one the off-chance, whilst doing something completely different. He hadn't even gone in, just ran past. He was given a folder.

Then he'd got stuck in the past, and the folder he's been given suddenly had a use. It had everything, start to finish, that he had to say, and what she would say on the other side. In another time.

Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale still had their little shop, he found.

He materialised the TARDIS directly inside, in the front of the shop. It was a tuesday, and mid-day, so he couldn't understand why it was shut.

But he knew there was something going on - he'd been told. He'd been challenged to stop it, to save someone here.

He wandered around the shop cautiously, occasionally shouting 'Sally?' out into the darkness. No response.

The TARDIS groaned, as though unhappy to be here. The Doctor gave it a sharp look, before turning back and seeing Larry stood, baseball bat-in-hand, behind the counter.

'Who are you?' he said, before he noticed the big blue box. 'No way...'

'Larry?' the Doctor asked, looking at him.

'You need to leave,' he said. 'That's the Doctor's ship, he loves that ship, he'll be looking for you!'

'I am the Doctor, Larry. Long story. Regeneration, new face, new body,' he twitched his bowtie. 'New fashion sense.'

'I don't buy it.'

'A year ago, you and Sally helped me escape from the past. You stopped the Angels, the Weeping Angels that move when you're not looking. YOu were fine, managed to avoid the whole 'image of an Angel becomes an Angel' thing, and you fell in love. It's me, believe me.'

'Wha... what are you doing here?' He asked nervously.

'Well, something's going on. I was directed here, told I needed to save someone. Who do I need to save, Larry?'

'No one,' he stammered.

'Larry, please. I can help. I'm the Doctor.'

Larry stared at him, not in any way trusting. But there was something in his eyes, a desperation that even the Doctor could recognise.

'I can help...' the Doctor moved closer, but Larry raised the bat.

'The Angels nearly killed us before,' he said.

'Are they back?' the Doctor asked.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I have no idea.' He looked as though he was about to cry, and lowered the bat. 'We need you, Doctor.'

'I'm here,' he said. 'What's going on?'

'It's Sally,' he said. 'She's been having these nightmares, about the Angels. She hasn't had any before, but they started a week ago and she doesn't leave her room. I go in and check on her but she's so scared.'

'She's scared, okay,' the Doctor was thinking. Surely that can't be all that's going on? 'Take me up to her, Larry,' ordered. Larry lead him to the back of the shop, upstairs into the small flat they own above. There was a small corridor, with a wooden door at the end.

'Sally?' the Doctor said through the door.

'Who's there?' came a small, ill answer.

'It's the Doctor,' he said. 'I'm here to help!'

'I told Larry not to call you. I don't need a doctor...'

'Not that kind of doctor,' he said, looking at Larry.

They both heard Sally scramble across the room to the door, opening it wide, looking ath the Doctor and giving him a strange look. 'Thought you were someone else...'

'Oh no. It's me! I'm the Doctor, same Doctor, new face, new bowties, new voice, same brain, though. What's wrong, Sally?'

She looked at Larry, who nodded, acknowledging her confusion as a legitimate worry.

She said, nothing, but pulled her arm up and revealed a small, wing tattoo on her hand.

'What's that?' the Doctor asked.

'It's a wing,' she said.

'It's very nice.'

'It wasn't there three days ago.'

The Doctor watched her. He thought for a second, before starting to slap his pockets, searching through them for something.

'What are you-' Larry was cut off by the Doctor pulling out a small, battered book.

'Everything you'll need to know about the Weeping Angels!'

'You still think it's them? I didn't just have a night-out I can't remember, a little liver-poisoning?'

The Doctor scanned her with the sonic screwdriver, shaking his head. 'There are time-warps around you. Something is manipulating you, very subtly.'

'And you think it's the Weeping Angels?' she asked, looking at him. Her eyes were filled with tears. 'Are you saying that?'

'Well, I don't know, but... I think it's likely-'

Sally Sparrow slammed the door in his face, crying softly. Not the kind of crying that comes out of fear, or terror. More sadness. As though she'd already given up.

The Doctor looked through the book, coming to a chapter he'd given only a little thought to in the past. 'Marked Targets,' he said, reading it.

'Marked what?' Larry asked. Only now the Doctor noticed the The Angels Have The Phone Box t-shirt he was wearing. It made him smile.

'Targets. The Angels, have this rule,' he said, loud enough so he knew Sally could hear him too. 'The image of an Angel becomes an Angel. That's why you can't take a photo, or look at it too long. It's evolution at it's finest. If you look for too long, an image inside your head forms, and that starts to convert into an Angel. It starts to convert you into an Angel.'

'But it's been a year,' Larry said.

'Well, I know... but that mark on her hand, it's a target-mark. The Angels are coming for her.'

'How?' Sally asked through the door.

'Something changed. Something made an image in your head of them, am I right? And the Angels know about it. They're converting you, Sally. And I'm going to stop them.'


	17. E3C2: Wester Drumlins

Sally opened the door to look at him, questioningly. 'Why the Angel mark?'

'Because they're toying with you,' the Doctor said. 'I've seen it before, kind of. They don't always leave a mark, but they always do something. Last-time, it was a countdown.'

'A countdown?'

'Of how long a friend of mine would survive until they either killed her or converted her.'

'They might kill me?' Sally asked, looking at Larry. 'I can't...'

She walked away from the door, not shutting it this time, and sat on the bed, hugging her legs. 'Either I die, or I become a Weeping Angel, is that what you're saying?'

'Basically.'

'What happens then?' she asked flatly. 'Do I have control? Do I go zombie and start trying to kill people.' She looked at the Doctor. 'Would I kill Larry?' She had tears in her eyes now.

'I don't know. I've never seen this before. All I have is this bloody book!'

'Well, your friend, how did you save her?'

'...I dropped the Angels into a crack in time, so they had never existed. They blinked away, and Amy didn't have a memory of them that could convert her.'

'I'm guessing you don't have one handy?' Larry asked.

'No, but there's more than one way to kill an Angel,' the Doctor said, walking into the room to comfort Sally. 'It's not set in stone,' he said. She laughed at his bad pun. 'YOu can walk away from this, Sally. You'll be fine.'

'It's not me I'm worried about,' she said.

'If you convert, for all we know you'll have control over it.'

'If I convert, I don't want you to take the risk. Put me in the TARDIS and drop me into the sun. Just kill me. I'd rather die than hurt him.'

'You don't have to worry about me,' Larry said. 'My job's to look after you, Sal.'

She smiled a little, and then jumped up, off the bed, and flung her arms around Larry, clinging onto him. 'I love you,' she whispered to him.

'I love you too,' he said, hugging her tight.

Her feet dangled a little way off the ground, and swung as he picked her up. He kissed her forehead, and that was the moment she started to cry.

The Doctor left them to kiss and hug and all of that gooey, humany love-stuff they do.

He instead lay on the bed and tried to think.

How do you kill and Angel made of stone?

Even more importantly, how do you stop it from converting a person?

First, find the Angels that are in her thoughts, and get rid of them. Throw them into a sun, or something.

Next, figure out how far along the conversion is. If she had a mark, then it must be fairly far.

Third, find out what's driving her fear. The Angels have been gone for a year, why would she have a spark of fear now?

Well, first things first - find the other Angels.

As soon as Sally and Larry had stopped fondling.

The Doctor waited for them to finish, and for Larry to put her down, and then told them what the first stage of the plan was - to find the Angels.

'What happened to them after the basement?'

'Nothing,' Larry said. 'They're still there, arent they?'

'I think so,' Sally said. 'We left them there, so they should just be in the basement of Wester Drumlins. Nobody goes there, and it's uninhabited still.'

'Right then, the Doctor said. 'To the scene of the crime!'

'Wait, we're going there?'

'We have to,' the Doctor said.

'Why?' Larry asked. 'That place is... awful.'

'Well, you don't have to come,' Sally said. 'I'm not getting you all caught up in my mess.'

'Don't be stupid,' Larry said.

'Someone needs to hold up the shop,' she said. 'Please. I don't want you anywhere near them.'

'If that's really what you want?'

'Yeah,' she said, smiling. Larry looked relieved, but cautious. He looked to the Doctor.

'If she gets hurt, I'll kick your little space-butt into next week.'

Sally laughed at his attempt of macho-ness, and Larry smiled. She hadn't laughed in a while.

The Doctor lead Sally downstairs, and into the TARDIS.

'This place has changed,' she said, remembering when she had last seen it.

'Same as me,' the Doctor said. 'Still an old beaut' though!' he smiled.

'Are we really going after those Angels?'

'Yes we are.'

'Are we going to kill them?'

'Yes, we are.'

'Am I going to get better?'

'Yes you are.'

Sally looked troubled. 'How much will this affect me?'

The Doctor started to push levers, preparing to take-off. 'What do you mean?'

'Well, when no-one's looking at me, will I be human? Or will I have wings, and be homicidal? Would I be able to touch people without killing them?'

The Doctor stopped, looking down. 'I have no idea. But I'm here to help you. And I will. I'm going to get you better, so don't even start on that, because it's not happening. Ever.'

Sally said nothing. Even when the TARDIS took-off, into time and space, she simply steadied herself and stayed silent.

Until the TARDIS landed, she was silent. They exited the blue box, and she finally said. 'How are we going to kill them?'

The Doctor shrugged and said, 'any way we can.'

'As soon as we move one, the other across from it is free,' she said.

'I know,' the Doctor said, walking her down the overgrown gravel path to the front door. They stepped in, being cautious of the vines and leaves that had found their way inside.

'So how do we kill them?'

'We don't kill them,' he said. 'We move them. Somewhere their link to you will be broken. Unless we can kill them, then we'll kill them.'

Sall showed him downstairs, to the basement, where the one light bulb that had troubled them so long ago stood was now replaced, and on, with three friends.

They'd made sure there was no flickering happening any time soon.

But still, the room was dim, and they could see the square of Angels, stuck in place from a year ago, almost taken by some vines that were crawling towards them.

'Doctor?' Sally had noticed something.

One of them was missing.

An Angel had got out.

'Doctor where is it?' she asked. 'How the hell did it get out?'

'I don't know,' he said. 'But we should leave. We need to leave right now.'


	18. E3C3: Flickers

'Get out,' the Doctor ordered. Sally didn't argue, running to the door, only to have it shut in her face before she could escape. The Doctor looked at her, worry and fear scratched into his face.

Sally looked back to him, seeing the look on his face, but then looked past him, the three lights she and Larry had put up a while ago.

The flickered.

'Okay,' the Doctor said, realising the room was starting to go black. 'This is pretty scary.'

'I've done this before,' Sally said, breathless. 'They can turn out the lights, and when they do...'

'Yep,' the Doctor nodded. 'Then they start to move.'

The Doctor managed to get one good look at the Angel opposite the space where the other should be; It's eyes were closed.

The lights flashed off and on again, and the Angels had turned slightly, their faces now staring at the Doctor and Sally.

Sally slammed on the door, trying to get through. The Doctor joined her, scanning it with the sonic. 'Keep looking at them,' he told her as he hurried. 'I can get this.'

The lights continued to flicker, but only the three of them. The fourth still hadn't made an appearance, and they were both nervous about thinking of when they were going to run into it.

But, right now, the Doctor's mind was strictly on opening the door. The sonic told him that wood wasn't it's thing, but he'd installed a rudimentary app he thought might have worked. It seemed to be having an effect, but not fast enough at all.

'This is stupid, watch the Angels,' Sally said. The Doctor glanced past her to the Angels, who moved an inch further with each flicker. They were slow.

Sally slammed her foot into the door, at the handle, bursting it open. She ran for her life, and the Doctor stood, letting the light of the outside flood in on the Angels.

Sally ran into the open driveway, alone, and had to control her breathing and her shaking hands. 'Panic attack,' she commented, as her legs gave way.

He lay in the driveway, calming herself quietly as she waited for the Doctor.

His absence wasn't even a major worry for her. She vaguely remembered the fourth Angel not being there, but she wasn't sure what she'd be able to do about it anyway, even if it was directly behind her.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was in the process of moving the Angels in a manner where they would be facing each other, almost hugging from the way their arms had been outstretched. Their grotesque faces seemed to scream at one-another, and he had a stroke of genius.

The way they were moving, he realised, was because the Angels could only see each other when they weren't stone - so when they were, stone, the other could move. They were flickering between their real form and stone at impossible speeds.

So how do you freeze them?

He figured they would be safe for the moment, at had taken ages for that one Angel to stop-motion itself into closing it's eyes so that the one opposite could escape-

Oh.

He stopped, realising that he had left the Angels unattended when there was another one out there, free.

He looked back and saw all four Angels, one advancing on him, one still where he'd left it, and another one holding the last, moving it so that they weren't facing each other.

'Oh dear,' he said, moving backwards. He hadn't anticipated this, and thought the only way to stop them would be to lock them in, but it's impossible to keep them trapped anywhere for long. They're stronger than wood, by a long way.

He soniced the door, and slammed it shut on them. He heard them instantly start smacking the wood, making it flex and warp under their pounds.

He turned and ran, still able to hear them slamming against the wood.

He frowned as he ran, thinking things over, until he made it outside. Sally was sitting on the gravel, her eyes closed.

'I had a panic attack,' she said.

'You okay?' he asked, helping her up and leading her into the TARDIS, shutting the doors behind them. She stumbled in, unsure of her footing.

'My head really hurts and I think I might throw up. Are they gone?'

'Nope.'

'Coming after us?'

'Most definitely,' he said. 'But, I think we may have an advantage!'

'What's that?' she asked, rubbing her head and holding her stomach.

'They're slower than usual. Maybe it's because they've been asleep for a year, but they weren't as fast as we've seen them, eh? You've seen them jump metres in a millisecond, but a relatively long flash of a lightbulb, and they'd barely turned.'

'So they're rusty?'

'Exactly!'

'How do we use that against them?'

'Against them? Oh no, we just use it to run, Sally. These are the Weeping Angels, Lonely assassins, hunters and, in some cases, great farmers.'

'So we're running?' she asked him, watching as he spun dials and shifted levers, sending them off into the vortex.

'Yes, we are.'

'Where to?'

'Your shop!' he said. 'Love me a little shop. I worked in a shop for a little bit, did you know that? Battled a crashed cyberman in a big shop. It's a hard life.'

'You're a strange man,' Sally commented, feeling slightly worse for the shifting floor of the TARDIS.

They landed and quickly burst out into the shop, still closed, and travelled upstairs, where Larry was sat, waiting for them. He jumped up as they came in, catching Sally as she collapsed in his arms.

'What happened to her?!' he asked, looking in her eyes as they glazed over.

'She says she had a panic attack but...' the Doctor scanned her, and then pulled up her sleeve to see the hand that had once been home to the strange wing-mark now a dull grey.

'What's that?' Larry asked, holding up her head.

'It's started,' the Doctor said. 'She's panicking, thinking about the Angels, letting them get inside her head, Her fear of them is fuelling it.'

'So how do we get her to stop being scared?!' Larry yelled, starting to panic himself.

Sally was in Larry's arms, almost limp, shivering. Her half-stone hand hung, motionless and heavy on her arm.

The Doctor watched it for a few seconds, and was physically able to see the grey becoming thicker, as though sinking up from her bones up to the surface. Her fingernails became stone fully first, then the tips of her fingers.

It seemed to top when it reached her knuckles - just as Sally passed out.

'Oh, okay,' the Doctor nodded. 'That'll do. Can we keep her asleep?'

'For how long? Larry asked, laying her down on her bed.

'As long as it takes for me to kill and Angel.'

Larry looked at him, nodded, and let the Doctor leave. He lay her head softly onto the pillow, and didn't leave her side until she woke up the next morning.

'Hey there,' she smiled, looking at him. He smiled back.

'How you feeling?'

'Like I'm not really here,' she said. 'Where's the Doctor?'

'Off planning, or something. He left last night. I'm not sure here he got to.'

Sally nodded vaguely and fell back asleep.


	19. E3C4: Painted Grey

The Doctor was in his TARDIS, in a small room full of glass jars and smoking bottles. He hadn't been in this room for what seemed like forever, but he knew that he had something in here that could help with the Weeping Angels now that they were, he hoped, still in that room. Maybe just in the house, but that would have to do. For now.

He had no way of killing them. Yes, they were made of stone, but if you try and strike them when they were made of stone, but as soon as you look away they just rebuild. You could reduce them to dust, blink and it'd be smiling in front of you. Yet another demonstration of their impossibly impressive evolution. The perfect predator.

He shuffled between close-set shelves, hunting for the little creature he knew was in here somewhere... ah!

He pulled out a small glass jar within which sat a small rainbow-colour ball. It shimmered and hovered inside the jar, and he smiled. He waved to it.

'Hello little guy,' he said, opening the top of the jar. The liquid the small ball had been kept in was designed to keep it fed and breathing without trouble, for as long as possible.

This was his 'specimen' room. For creatures without higher brain function or with endangering circumstances. This particular ball, a creature known as an 'ilumitlo', was a creature with 360 degree vision, able to see in the dark and colours neither he or most creatures could comprehend. He called it Iggy.

While it wasn't the best possible solution to the problem, the Doctor knew he had to resort to using Iggy as a way to stop the Angels; it was nowhere near perfect, and he didn't generally enjoy using creatures for purposes such as this, but he needed to save Sally and, in the end, Clara.

He wondered what Seripho was doing to her. Would he torture her? Kill her, even? He was all about 'making a point', maybe he would do it to show him how his own actions affect those around him.

The Doctor knew that what had happened to Sally was partially his fault, calling on her help to get him back from the 60's, but he knew too that if Seripho hadn't sent him back, Sally would have been claimed by the Angels - something he wasn't going to let happen.

He took Iggy and put back the jar, leaving the specimen room. On his way out he passed by a few other small things he'd picked up along the way - memory worms, a baby adipose, a cybermat. Tiny creatures he could look at, study. He was a Doctor, after all.

Iggy in hand, he left the TARDIS and strolled out into the lovely sunny mid-morning, wondering at what point the Angels would choose to circle him. He made sure the TARDIS was shut and locked, before dropping in on Wester Drumlins.

He made way to the basement, only to find the door burst open and in splinters across the floor. Sounds about right.

Okay, so he needed to get the Angels all in one place... how do you do that?

He left the house and stood outside the TARDIS, and blinked.

He could see one Angel upstairs, in the window. Another was at the doorway. He backed into the TARDIS, knowing that he just needed them all together, somewhere enclosed, but he had to risk getting caught.

Closing the doors, he ran to the monitor and looked at the screen. The Angels had advanced, one being now directly outside the TARDIS. The others were gone, planning a different approach he assumed.

He held Iggy in his hand and tried to plan out the next section. To be perfectly honest, he had no idea how he was supposed to stop these things. They were forever, they were undestroyable and they were the perfect hunters. All he had was a slightly impressive space-eyeball. No offence, Iggy.

He closed his eyes, knowing that the Angels weren't able to get inside, and gave them a chance to move. When he opened them and looked to the monitor, he saw still only one, in the same place. He frowned, and was about to move outside when the phone rang.

'Why do people keep calling this?' he asked nobody.

He opened the slot on the inside of the door that allowed him to access the phone (a nifty little slot he'd installed himself), and answered.

'Hello... TARDIS residence?'

'Hello,' came a voice. It sounded twisted, but vaguely human. It was speaking English.

'Who are you and how did you call this phone?'

'We are the Angels.'

'Ah.'

'You are the Doctor.'

'I am indeed! What do you want, eh? You wouldn't call me for nothing.'

'We wish to make a deal,' the Angel suggested.

'A deal? With me?'

'We hoped we could convinced you to grant us your ship, the Timelord science and time energy could fuel us for eternity.'

'I know that.'

'In return we will not convert your friend.'

'Sally?'

'She would be spared, Doctor.'

'How? How do I know you even have control?'

'You would rather keep your ship than your friend?'

'That's not the point. The point is that you would do anything for this power, including lie about your own influence over that process. From what I've seen and read, all it takes is her memory, her image of you in her head. You can't control it.'

'So you deny us the TARDIS?'

The Doctor paused. What if they could actually help? What if he could give them the TARDIS and this whole thing would just go away?

But he needed the TARDIS. He had to go back and save Clara. He needed to know what she was, and to save Sally, too.

'I can't,' he said. He knew he'd regret it. That he'd always be thinking 'what if that could have saved her?'

He didn't have a way of stopping them. Not really. He could maybe hold them still, with Iggy, but there was no way to kill the Angels. As a stone they would just re-shape. In their true form they were impossibly fast. He'd have to find a rip in time just to try and trick them into it.

He'd failed Sally.

This was the lesson Seripho was talking about; that the Doctor needed to know what his actions caused. He had brought her into this world, and now he was the reason she'd be ripped out of it, painted in grey.

'Then she will die, Doctor,' the Angel said. 'Her body will become an Angel, and the Sally you know will die.'

'I'll save her,' the Doctor said.

'We all know that's not quite true,' it said, taunting him. 'You can't. You don't know how.'

'I'll do it,' he said. 'I won't let her die.'

The Angel said nothing, simply letting the phone go dead. The Doctor hung up.


	20. E3C5: So that's the Plan

'You need to start telling us everything,' Sally said. The Doctor had barely opened the door, and had stepped into a cold atmosphere where he knew he was to blame.

'What do you want to know?'

'Why are you here?' Larry asked.

'To help-'

'No, but why.' Sally stared at him, holding her wrist. 'What's happening to me is, yeah. But why are you here? How did you know to come?'

'I was with a friend,' he explained. 'Called Clara and, as usual, I got her into trouble. She was shot and... I've seen her die a few times. I sometimes make her out to be little more than a mystery to me but... but for all the questions she poses, she's a great friend. She helped me through the loss of other people very close to me, and she's someone I should possibly be more honest with.'

'What happened to her?' Sally asked.

'Well, like I said, she was shot. By someone who seems to know a lot more about me than I do about them. Seripho, he's called, but I doubt he's alone. A conspiracy like this, he's just a footman, someone chasing up loose ends. He sent me here, saying that I needed to experience something, teach me a lesson about what my actions cause. The consequences they can have. He would heal her, she'd be fine, but I had to stay here until either I could save you or...'

'Or she dies,' Larry finished.

'Yes.'

'So that's why you're all 'god-complex' must-save-every-one, is it?'

'I suppose.'

'Don't you get tired of having to save people, vanquish foes, lose friends?'

'Absolutely,' he said. 'All I am is tired.'

'So why do you still do it?'

He thought for a moment, contemplating why he still did what he did. 'Because I'm not saving anyone,' he admitted. 'Not really. The people I meet, the places I go, they're fixing themselves. Sometimes I give them a push, something to aim at. Sometimes I just say the right words. Sometimes I run after it but, more often than not, it's not me who actually saves anyone.' He smiled to himself. 'I'm no hero, Sally. And the idea of your life being in my hands should scare you to death. My friends, they're the heroes. They are the reason I'm here, trying to justify what I've done to them. It's not fair, when they get hurt, and that's the lesson Seripho is trying to teach me, but I don't know how long I can keep going until I'm done. Clara is my friend, and she's a mystery and laughs and spunk all rolled up and sometimes I think she fascinates me because she's so... human.'

'And what about me?' Sally asked.

'You get hurt,' he said. 'You're the person I manage not to save. I'm not...' he looked away, to her hand. It was obviously tone now, and it had started to crawl up her arm.

'Doctor,' Sally said softly. 'It's not your job to save anyone. Everyone seems to look at you like a God, and you're starting to think that means you have to act like one. Whatever this Seripho says, what's happening to me isn't your fault. It's the Angels. They are doing this to me.'

She shifted her hair in a way that let the Doctor see her temple, where grey veins had started to show.

'It's not up to you to save everyone. I'm not a damsel in distress, Doctor. I'm dying, yes. And I hate what I'm going to become. But if it happens, I don't want you to blame yourself, you hear me?'

The Doctor said nothing, he just stared at her, watching with a quiet internal rage at himself.

'I'm terrified,' she almost laughed. 'I'm so scared. I don't want to be responsible for anyone dying, and I know you feel like you're responsible too. But I can't...'

'Sally-'

'Don't say we can stop this,' she said. 'You know we can't. You know that the Angels are going to convert me or something and the only way we can stop them is to drop them into some time-paradox and that's not going to happen. We lost. It's okay, Doctor. It's definitely not your fault.'

'If you go down,' Larry said. 'I'm going with you.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I'm here for you,' he said. 'I'm useless, you know that. There's no point to me without you, not really. And all of these Angels, everything we've seen and what we've done... I'm not just gonna keep the shop open without you.'

Sally kissed Larry, and the Doctor turned away to give them their moment. He knew how it felt to be dying, and her response had been the most mature and impressive thing he'd ever seen. It's true, he didn't know how to kill the Angels. He could stop them, with Iggy, if he had them all in one place, but that wouldn't stop them from killing Sally and replacing her with an Angel.

The Doctor closed his eyes, moving away from the tragic couple, and tried to gather his thoughts. He wasn't going to give up, but he knew that Sally wasn't going to play the victim, sit back and let him go off and do so many fantastical but inherently pointless things. She was a fighter, and she was going to fight the Angels with everything she had.

'What does that book say about killing an Angel?' Sally asked, after she and Larry had had their moment. They were both close to tears.

'That the only known instance of an Angel dying was at the hands of another Angel.'

'What happened?'

'They don't say. Just that only Angels can kill each other, and I assume they have to do so with their eyes closed, too.'

'I want to try,' she said.

'_What_?!' both Larry and the Doctor were blown back. Sally wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked at Larry.

'I'm not going to go down easily,' she said. 'If I fail, that's my fault, Doctor. But I will fight for my life, for my man,' she blinked, unsure of whether she should continue. 'For my baby.'

Larry looked at her for a second, started to react, stopped, as though looking for reassurance that he had heard what he had. 'You're not...'

She nodded, not sure whether to laugh or cry. She did both.

'Oh my... Oh God,' Larry said, laughing. He stopped. 'Oh, God...' he seemed completely clashed on whether he was ecstatic or terrified even more so.

'That's what caused the nightmares,' the Doctor said. 'That's why you're so scared. You're not scared for you, you're scared for your baby.' He nodded, smiling, as though this made complete sense all of a sudden.

'I found out a week ago, and the Angels and the thought of them coming back... I guess I caused this all, then.'

'Or we both did,' Larry said, half-joking. 'I mean, I can't let you go alone now. I meant it when I said we'd go together.'

'They'd rip you apart,' the Doctor said.

'I could be bait,' he said. 'I lure them into a room, we can keep them all as stone, somehow...'

'I can manage that,' the Doctor said, thinking of Iggy back in the TARDIS, hovering in the console room, waiting.

'And then Sally rips them apart.'

Sally nodded. 'I want to fight,' she said. 'I'm not letting you just hop in and save me,' she said. 'And are you sure you want to be bait?'

'I have to, they already have you and the Doctor's got to immobilise them,' Larry said, shrugging it off as though it was nothing.

'So that's the plan?' the Doctor asked, knowing that it was completely insane. They didn't even have too much proof that Sally would be able to kill any Angels, and if she was Angel-enough to do it if they could kill each other. But it was the only plan they had, and he knew that Sally and Larry weren't going to take this lying down. They were going to win. They didn't really need him, he realised. They needed each other.


	21. E3C6: Playing Bait

'So you want me to go into a room full of Angels and kick the living crap out of them, because that would apparently kill them?'

'No idea if it'll work,' the Doctor said. 'Not sure if you'll even be able to control the Angel parts of yourself. Do you feel like you could do it?'

'I do,' she said. 'I just wish I wasn't...' she looked to her currently flat stomach. 'Vulnerable.'

'If you want to go in, you can. If not, we'll find another way-'

'No. This is what we've got. This is how I'm going to save myself, and my child, and then I'm going to live with that child's father until I'm old and grey, if you'll pardon the bad imagery.'

Larry laughed, noticing that she only ever made jokes these days when she was scared. He took her hand, squeezing it slightly. She smiled to him, knowing he was trying to help take some of the strain.

'So, when are we doing this?' she asked, wiping her eyes.

'Whenever you're ready. The longer we leave it, the stronger the Angel side of you will be. That might make you stronger at beating them, but we have no idea when you're going to lose control...'

Sally looked at her stone hand, unable to move whilst she looked at it. Brushing it against her temple, she could still feel through it, though it felt numb. Like she had pins and needles buzzing like white noise up her arm and in her head.

The matted, grey veins on the side of her head were growing close to her left eye now. She could feel it, like a heat, pressing on her.

It started to grow hotter, pushing on her, forcing her to her knees.

She could hear Larry, shouting. But his voice was so far away...

Someone pulled her up and onto the bed, laying her down. She barely noticed. All she could feel was the side of her head burning, her stone hands not even letting her grasp the bed to relieve it.

'It's growing on her arm,' the Doctor said, panicking slightly. He and Larry had gotten her onto the bed, and no were just trying to restrain her to stop her hurting herself. He hands were stone - that would kill her if she managed to hit her own head hard enough. 'And her head! Okay, Larry, we can't do anything and I'm sorry you have to see this I really-' Sally's stone fist smacked the Doctor in the jaw, and he managed to give her an insulted look before continuing to hold down her arms. Larry held her head, kissing her forehead and trying to calm her.

'Sally?' Larry asked her, trying to reach her. 'Sally can you hear me?'

She said nothing, barely able to stop herself screaming. Her muffled whimpers were perhaps worse, not letting her let it out. she had to hold in the pain.

Her eyes were clamped shut, and as the grey veins grew to touch her eye, she let out a new lease of noise - an animalistic, core screech. It only held for a few seconds before she blacked out.

As her head fell back, limp, the Doctor rushed to check her breathing. 'She's alive,' he said. Larry let out a relieved sigh, still tenderly holding her head.

'What happened?' he asked.

'I think the Angels know we're coming after them,' the Doctor theorised. 'They're speeding up the process, making her change faster. This way she'll lose control faster.'

'Lose control?'

'Well, right now I'd say she'd doing a pretty impressive job of not killing us, but that's not going to last forever. We need to get her awake and to the Angels as soon as possible...' the Doctor stopped as he saw Sally's eyes drift open, though she was still out cold.

Under her flesh eyelids, her eyes were stone.

'Doctor...' Larry didn't know what he was trying to point out to the Doctor that he hadn't already seen, but he needed to say something. The woman he loved was becoming stone, bit by bit, before his eyes. And he couldn't do a damn thing to stop it.

But he didn't get angry. Not while she lay unconscious in front of him. He just kissed her forehead again, and held her head in his hands, waiting for her to wake up.

She was only out for a few minutes, and was soon blinking again.

'Why is everything dark? Larry? Doctor?' she called out.

'I'm here, Sally! We're here,' Larry calmed her.

'Why can't I see anything?' she asked.

'You can't see because your eyes are made of stone,' the Doctor said, grievingly. 'They're converting you faster, Sally.'

'I can feel it,' she said, quite calm. 'I can feel what you were talking about - the Angel urges to do whatever I can to get the energy.'

'Angels work on time energy, that's going to be a strong impulse. Like hunger.'

'So what, I'm going zombie?'

'If you want to think of it that way, yes.'

'How long until we go up against them?' she asked, knowing that she was low on time. 'I want to do this soon.'

'We can go whenever you feel up to it.'

'I'm not getting any better,' she said, trying to stand. Her legs shook under her as she lifted up from the bed, so Larry dove to catch her, holding her up.

'I'm not so sure about this,' Larry said. 'I can't let you just go in there like this, they'll destroy you Sal.'

'They need me,' she said. 'Alive. Angel. They could just kill me, but I think they're doing this for a reason.'

'We'll take you down to the TARDIS. I'll take you both to Wester Drumlins. Larry, you're playing bait, right?'

'I can do that, yeah.'

'And I've got a friend who'll help keep them still while Sally takes them out.'

'Might be a bit harder now, mind,' she said, laughing a hollow laugh. 'I mean, how's a blind girl supposed to handle four homicidal stone murderers?'

'You can do this,' the Doctor said, pushing her maybe a little harder than he should have. He wouldn't usually, but he knew it was the only way the Angels would die. She was their only shot at survival.

And then there was the baby.

Plus the Doctor's slightly more selfish motive of saving Clara, and proving that not all of his friends will die at his hand. He had to show Seripho and his employer that the Doctor didn't ruin people's lives.

He didn't want to be proven to be a villain. He had enough self-esteem problems as it was.

The TARDIS travelled at a slower pace than usual, making the journey smoother for Sally, as though it knew she was blind and weak.

They exited the TARDIS, Sally on Larry's arm for guidance, and they entered the seemingly empty Wester Drumlins building, with no sign of the Angels anywhere.

The Doctor was carrying Iggy under his arm, prepared for anything, whilst they got Larry into position - the basement. He knew the risks, and they had talked through what was going to happen - he'd wait here with Sally for the Angels. They hadn't fed since they were stuck here, so they'd hopefully be desperate enough to attack Larry even with her being where she was.

The Doctor gave Larry a small rectangular device, with a single red button on it.

'Big friendly button,' he said. 'Push it when they arrive.'

'Right,' Larry said, nodding. He sat in the near-darkness, refusing to blink as much as he could, even though he knew it was the whole point.

'I love you,' Sally whispered after they'd been waiting for a few minutes.

Larry smiled, looking to her. 'I love you too.'

They kissed, allowing an Angel to climb into the basement unannounced. It stood over them, watching as Larry snapped back to looking.

It's face was placid - not in an attacking mood.

'Close your eyes,' Sally told him.

'Are you crazy? There's a-'

'I know. It's talking to me. Close your eyes, baby. You'll be fine.'

Larry, reluctantly, closed his eyes on the Angel. He felt Sally's hand, no longer stone, tighten on his arm.


	22. E3C7: The Weeping Girl

She clutched him, listening as the Angel spoke to her. It was pleading. Asking for help.

It was scared.

'What are you scared of?' she asked out loud, not knowing how to communicate telepathically like it was.

_The Fourth Angel_, it said. Thought? _The Fourth Angel was one of us, our leader, but it has started to hunt us. It has decided that Angels are the most... profitable of prey._

'There's an Angel hunting other Angels?' she asked.

'There's a what?' Larry asked.

'Is that Angel the one which is killing me?' she asked. 'Is the Fourth Angel converting me?'

_No Angel is converting you, Sally,_ it said. _It doesn't work that way. The only thing converting you is your memory of the Angels, and your fear of them. The image of an Angel becomes an Angel itself. You have an image inside you, so you're becoming one._

'So how do I stop it?'

_I can stop it, Sally,_ it promised._ I can make you human again. I can stop the thoughts consuming you._

'How?'

_By wiping your memories. You will have no knowledge of us, nor of the Doctor. You will still be in love, and you will still be pregnant. You will forget us._

'And that will save me?'

_It will._

'Then take me to this Fourth Angel.'

_It has converted my two sisters._

'Can someone please tell me what's going on?' Larry asked. Sally seemed to snap out of a small trance, and hugged his arm tightly.

'I only have to kill one Angel now, I think-'

_Three,_ it corrected her. _My sisters too._

'Three. Not four, three,' Sally said.

'Oh. Good!' He opened one eye to see the Angel, still stood where it had been. 'I'm guessing we're not killing that one?'

'No we're not.'

_My sisters plan on converting humans to Angel, and then to feast on them. They began with you due to a grudge._

'Sally Sparrow - enemy of the Angels, eh?' the Doctor's voice came from the doorway. He stepped in, Iggy in hand, and threw him up. Iggy stopped and hovered about a metre off the floor, humming slightly to itself.

The Doctor waved his psychic paper in the air. 'I've been getting a transcript of the Angels' side of the story,' he explained. 'So there are three Angels hunting down this one, and they're converting Sally so that they can feast on her because cannibalisation is just so _in_ right now. Am I right?'

'She says you're right.'

'She?' The Doctor hopped over to the Angel, solid and stoic in it's stone form. 'Never been allied with an Angel, suppose it's a plus. Not really sure yet.'

'We hang out here until another Angel makes a pop at us here.'

The words 'they won't' appeared on the paper.

'And why not?' the Doctor asked the statue.

The words read 'they are hunting me, and waiting for Sally, they have no interest in Larry. He won't work as bait, which is what I assume you were trying.'

'So what do you suggest we do instead?' he asked.

'Maybe we use the Angel as bait instead?' Larry offered. 'If they're hunting this Angel, can't we trap them around this one?'

'I'm not sure we have a choice, really,' Sally said. Her eyes were locked on the doorway where the Doctor had appeared only a minute before - a stone hand was showing from around the corner, taunting them.

Larry, the Doctor and Sally all watched this one hand, forgetting to watch the Angel stood by them. It managed to turn to face the doorway at least, before Iggy's sight was no longer blocked by Larry, and it forced it back to stone.

The Doctor took Iggy and held it, walking up to the stone hand, round the corner, into the hallway. Words on the psychic paper wrote 'that is one of my sisters, but not the one feasting on Angels. She is not the leader.'

'Sally?' the Doctor called her up. Larry lead her up to the Angel, which stood as though it was going to turn the corner and pounce, stuck. 'Ask the Angel how you kill it.'

'Okay...' Sally's stone eyes gave away the fear she felt. She explored the thoughts of the Angel in front of her - she saw the way to kill it. She saw what it would do to her.

She gripped Larry's arm as much as she could with stone hands, as he held her up on the small stairs.

'To kill an Angel,' she said, holding onto him. 'I would have to murder it like any other creature whilst it's in it's natural, non-stone state.' She paused, as though she was going to say more, but didn't say. She wasn't sure whether it was smart to tell Larry what it would do to her when she murdered the Angel.

'So they have to be natural?' the Doctor asked. 'So we can't be anywhere near them, then?'

'I guess not,' Sally said. She could feel the Angel, slightly, like a buzzing in front of her. She could tell it was there, searching in her mind. The telepathic network they seemed to have had obviously been introduced to her, but she didn't know how far that gave them control over her thoughts.

Sally attempted to reach the Angel before her, to talk to it, but it remained silent. It had told her what it would do to her, even in death, and had vowed to say nothing else.

It made her stomach turn.

'Sal, you okay?' Larry asked. She'd been silent for a while now.

'Oh, err, yeah. Fine.'

'What's wrong baby?'

'I can't think straight,' she said. 'All of this... am I allowed to break down, or is that stupid?'

'I'd be breaking down if I were you,' the Doctor admitted.

Sally then proceeded to cry for several minutes, before demanding that she be left alone in a room with the Angel in front of her.

The Doctor and Larry waited on the weeping girl, with the Angel that had helped them, and Iggy in the basement, whilst she did what she needed to upstairs.

When they next saw her, almost her entire face was stone, as well as her whole left arm. She was barely able to move, though her legs were still flesh, allowing her to actually walk.

She'd never felt so close to death.


	23. E3C8: Wings and All

Sally's mouth was just about able to move, but her tongue and some of her throat was stone. It was killing her. She could barely breath, stuck between two existences.

'Two... more...' she managed to croak out. Her immobile hands were held by Larry, who refused to let her go anywhere alone.

'It has to happen,' the Doctor said. 'She wants to fight them, and this is the only way we-'

'This is it?' Larry yelled, letting go of Sally, standing up on the grit of the basement floor, eye level with the Doctor. 'This is what you have?! This is your grand plan to save her? Us?! Our child?'

'I can't save her,' the Doctor said, knowing how stupid and pathetic he sounded. 'But she can. And she's close.'

'Yeah, she bloody is!' Larry almost laughed, mocking the Doctor's words. 'She's close to being nothing more than another Angel, and I can't cope with that. I'm not some alien time-travelling God who can just run away and say 'oh, I can't do this, save yourselves', Doctor. I'm Larry Nightingale, and I am scared for the woman I love and the child she's protecting! Why can't you say anything more than just 'she's close'?'

'Because I genuinely can't do anything, Larry,' the Doctor shouted back. 'Sally is like this because of me, I introduced this world to her, I told her to give me those transcripts. If that hadn't happened, none of this would have. It's a paradox that I started.'

'That's laughable,' Larry said. He drew up close to the Doctor, inches between their noses. 'Sally is everything to me, and all you can say is that it's your fault she's dying and you can't help her.'

'Want...' Sally mumbled, her aching lips struggling under the weight. 'To fight.'

'You want to fight them?' Larry asked her, kneeling down to hold her. 'I know I agreed to this, but that was before I saw what fighting them did to you... it's accelerating it.'

'Will... end...'

'How can you be sure?'

Sally said nothing, but simply pointed at the Angel that had helped them. She had told her.

'You knew?' Larry asked her. 'You knew what it would do to you?'

Sally nodded stiffly.

'Where's the last one?' the Doctor asked, pushing her. He knew it was wrong, but he had to see her fight these. She could win, or she would die. His lesson was being taught, indeed. Seripho had shown him the consequences of his own actions - his friend was half-stone, her child at risk and her love broken and angry. He had caused this.

He knew that Sally didn't want him thinking that, but it was true.

Sally stood up, with Larry's help, and mumbled softly 'Waiting... Outside.'

'The next one's outside? Can you feel it?' Larry asked.

Sally nodded, and started to move with Larry in tow.

The Doctor left Iggy and the Angel in the basement, following Sally and Larry out into the dimming light.

The next Angel stood by the TARDIS, as though taunting them.

Sally was taken by Larry to the room they had used last time - no light, lockable door, perfect. In there, the Angels wouldn't be able to see each other, nor her, and she was able to fight them.

The Doctor and Larry then moved the Angel, literally picking it up and carrying it, to the room, locked the door and moved away, waiting.

From inside they could hear her voice - Sally. In there she was free to move as much as she wanted. To scream and yell as much as she liked.

They could hear the Angel, too. It's noises were far from human. Screeches not unlike the ones Sally had made when the Angels had sped up her conversion. They were chilling and cold, hard sounds. Like kind that haunt you after a ripping nightmare.

Eventually Sally emerged from the room, victorious. She was hurt, it was obvious, as she limped and fell to the floor as her left leg turned to stone under her.

Larry jumped out to help her up, but it was almost impossible to keep her upright. Desperate, he and the Doctor moved her into the dark room, using the light the Doctor kept in his jacket as a light source.

They could see the dust and gravel of the angel that had been destroyed in here - they didn't want to know what Sally had had to do to make this kind of mess.

The Doctor took out his psychic paper, knowing that sally would be trying to reach them. sure enough, the words _I'm winning_ quickly showed up on the page, and Larry smiled. He kissed the forehead of her stone, statuesque figure, and told her he loved her.

_I love you too_ appeared on the paper.

'That's the two sisters,' the Doctor said, talking to both of them. 'Now, the big daddy, the one who's converting you. Can you feel him, Sally?'

_Yes. He's here,_ she said.

'Here?' Larry asked, reading it. 'Where 'here'?'

_Here._

The word appeared on the paper, but it was a different - the paper's subtle but effective way of telling the Doctor that this was a new speaker.

The Doctor and Larry both turned on the spot to see the screaming, attack face of an Angel, it's wings flared and teeth prepared to rip them apart, if needs be.

Larry shrieked and jumped backwards, but the Doctor remained solid, holding the light up to it's face. The Doctor smiled.

'Sally, you listening?' he called. 'We're going to leave you two to it. I have faith in you,' he said, feeling with everything that he should stay, be part of the fight. But he couldn't. Not this time. It wasn't his person to save.

'Keep watching him,' Larry told him. 'Just for a second. Don't turn around, okay?'

'Okay... wait, what are you doing?; the Doctor asked.

Behind him, Larry looked to Sally, who he was still keeping upright. 'I really do love you, you know that?' He smiled, brushing her stone face. 'I'm going to trust you now, okay?' He waiting, like he was expecting a response. 'Okay. Here goes.'

Larry Nightingale closed his eyes.

Instantly, her soft, fleshing lip pressed against his, and he took her body in his arms. He could feel the tears on her cheeks, but whether they were from him or her was a question he couldn't answer.

'I love you too,' she said between kisses, smiling. 'I'll do this,' she said. 'I can do this, I promise.'

'I believe you,' Larry said, trying not to just kiss her forever. 'I just... I hate seeing you...'

'So Angel-like?' she asked. 'It's not exactly fun, actually... but it'll be sorted. Once I've done this, take me to the Angel in the basement, that'll sort me.'

Larry nodded and smiled, kissing her again.

'Are you two kissing again?!' the Doctor called back. 'I'm not sure you've noticed, but I've got a great-big Angel-snarl in my face here, and I'd appreciate it if you'd wrap it up?'

'I think that's my cue,' Sally said. Larry nodded and opened his eyes, and returning to see that stone face, even with the smile it had - her smile - still broke him a little inside.

The Doctor and Larry left the room, holding their gaze at the Angel for as long as they could.

Sally's smile stayed until the instant Larry's eyes left her. Then it was just her and the Angel.

From outside, they heard the fight. The tearing of flesh, the screams, the screeches, the blows, the breaking wood and snarling beasts.

Sally's return from the room consisted of her opening the door just a crack, until Larry's eyes jumped up to see her, still dressed in her clothes (though they were torn and bloody), completely stone. She was an Angel, wings and all.


	24. E3C9: An Unlucky Charm

Sally's wings were folded, behind her back, reserved. Her grey, still face looked frozen in tiredness, but also of pride. She was proud of her self for what she was able to do: save her family.

Her clothes hung off her stone figure, torn and burnt in places. God knows what the Angels were capable of in their true forms.

Larry almost threw himself at her, holding her face in his hands, feeling the wounds that had been immortalised in her granite skin, looking into her happy, pained eyes.

The Doctor held him by the shoulders as he almost broke down. It's hard seeing the person you love in a state like this, even if they did win.

The psychic paper showed no words. Nothing. No thoughts from within.

They did as they had been told - take her down to the Angel in the basement. The one who could heal her for the price of killing it's cannibalistic family. Time to see if the creature would hold up a deal.

It was still in place, with Iggy holding it in perpetual sight. Waiting for them to return.

Larry and the Doctor carried Sally, carefully and slowly, to the basement, where they stood her in front of the Angel. She was able to stand on her own, but Larry insisted on staying for a second.

'I know you can hear me,' he said to the Angel. 'And if you so much as sneeze out of the plan, I'll end you,' he said. 'Wouldn't kill you if I dropped you into the sun, but I bet it would hurt.' He turned to Sally and brushed her face. 'I love you, Sal.'

The Doctor took Iggy and Larry, one in each arm, and lead them out of the room. It was time for Sally to have her memory wiped. To forget the Angels, the danger. The Doctor.

Inside the room, as the Doctor, Larry and Iggy left, Sally became human first, and the Angel remained stone. Maybe this was a side effect of being half-human - dominance in the whole 'two-Angels-staring-at-each-other' thing.

Sally watched the Angel, and kept it in sight as she turned to look at her wings. They were beautiful.

Long, light and sleek. They shimmered off the small amount of light still in here, the flickering bulbs in the ceiling giving them a slight sparkle. She stretched one out, feeling the weight of it. It was light for how big it was, and touched the wall of the basement with the tip without being fully extended. She wondered if she'd be able to fly on these...

She turned her attention back to the Angel, which had turned to look at her in her distraction.

Are you ready? _it asked her._

'I think so,' she said, closing her eyes.

She felt it's hand on her shoulder, tracing up to her cheek. She held her breath as the world spun away from beneath her.

The words _it's done_ appeared on the Doctor's psychic paper, and he lead Larry down to the basement, where they saw the Angel holding Sally - human. No wings, no stone, no grey veins. There was no trace of the Angel ever being there - her fear was gone. Her memories were gone.

The rest was easy. The Doctor took the Angel into the TARDIS, flew it off to the beginning of the universe to life out it's immortal life, hopefully teaching Angels not to be cannibals.

Sally woke up, her love for Larry untarnished, her child was fine and she didn't remember a thing. The Doctor had to say goodbye in her sleep.

'I'm sorry for everything I put you two through,' he said to Larry, who nodded solemnly in return. 'I've got to go. If I stay, she might remember and that'd be awful for everybody...'

He realised then, thinking back to Donna Noble, how much better off people were without him. Without even remembering they've met him. All he does is endanger people.

He'd learnt his lesson.

But why?

He took himself in the TARDIS back to The Garden, back to that spot, not sure what to expect when he left.

He stepped out onto the thick grass, feeling it crush under his feet. Seripho was waiting, a great big smile stuck on that stretched face of his.

'How did you fair?' he asked.

'Sally Sparrow is alive, and safe.'

'Because she forgot everything you did to her?'

'Yes.'

'So what can we conclude from this little venture?'

'That I ruin people.'

'Like an unlucky charm.'

The Doctor looked at him, dead in the eye. 'Where is Clara?'

'Oh she's right here,' he said, moving aside. Clara was standing within a small bubble of energy. There was no bullet wound, no sign of a scar - nothing. 'Haven't hurt her in any way, I promise.'

'How can I believe you?'

'Hey, I did you a favour! I even wiped her memory of being shot. She won't remember the feeling, she'll barely remember what happened. You get to be the hero this time, Doctor,' he laughed. 'Oh, and by the way, I was meaning to tell you that the reason I'm here is on orders. Orders like the ones I was given to tell you this much: we're building bodies. Human bodies. Hence the emotional harvesting and the physical absorption of people here. The trees tell us the most intimate details of human anatomy, and Adam was being used to generate emotions. Didn't do it very well, bless him, but he was always a little useless, wasn't he?'

The Doctor couldn't respond.

Seripho smiled and clicked his fingers, vanishing into nothing. Clara dropped from the bubble she was being held in, landing on the damp grass, waking her from whatever induced-sleep Seripho had put her into.

He rushed over to her, helping her into the TARDIS on unsteady legs, sitting her on the mechanical seat they have in the console room.

'What happened?' she asked, rubbing her temples.

'Lots of things. You were captured, I was sent away,' he deliberately avoided the subject of her getting shot. 'Then I came back to get you. That's about it.'

'What about the people going missing?'

'A man called Seripho, using trees to create physically accurate people. Adam was being used to artificially recreate emotions - they were experiments.'

'That's awful...'

'Anyone who went missing, they're already part of the system.'

'How do we stop it?'

'Contact the I.C.C, tell them their planet isn't safe for visiting alien life. It'll go into lockdown. No one will ever come here again.'

'Okay. Alright.'

'It's the best we can do, Clara.'

'I know,' she said. 'You can't save everyone.'

...

As Sally made her way down from that dusty bedroom, she caught the sight of something on her wrist on the bannister. A tiny tattoo, one she couldn't remember getting.

One, tiny wing.


	25. E4C1: Earth II

Clara seemed to be doing well. She couldn't remember her wound at all, and the Doctor was thankful she wasn't aware of being shot and close to killed. He was thankful that Seripho had kept to his promise of letting her live, no matter what. He had reduced her to a plot device, however - Clara had been used to force the Doctor somewhere. He didn't appreciate that.

They hunted Seripho, and his mysterious employer, wondering where they would next run into a scheme involving them.

Clara had gone home and come back a few times - she liked to see the kids who missed her without fail. The Doctor never met them, though. Not yet, at least. He was dangerous.

Sometimes he hunted alone, trying to find a link, a mention anywhere, Seripho was no one.

He looked to his race - a people near to human in origin. They weren't dying out, but weren't taking over planets either. They were just getting along nicely. No last-of-the-species angst, then.

As for Broadplow Institute and what happened, there was no record. As far as anyone knew, Adam went mad one day and started creating imaginary monsters out of nanogenes for no apparent reason. The Doctor knew he was working for Seripho, harvesting emotions, but why, or to what end, he didn't know.

The Garden, on the other hand, was a bit easier. He knew that Adam was harvesting emotions, and The Garden had been employed to harvest people. On close inspection, he'd found that the trees were, on some level, giving out an electronic signal or their genetic make-up, the physiology. It wasn't traceable, however, as it only went to the little black box the Doctor had met, up in the observation deck.

So now the Doctor travelled, alone for the moment, hoping that Seripho would appear, giving the Doctor another lease of knowledge into this whole extravagant plot.

The Doctor was fascinated.

Eventually he started just travelling, not much thinking about Seripho. He was here to enjoy himself, after all. He saved those he ran into in need, but his primary incentive was, above all, fun!

Today he was taking the TARDIS off to a little planet he'd never took the time to enjoy enough - Earth II. The prototype of 'New Earth', in a way.

After Earth burns, of course, the human race decided it needed a new base of operations. They began the terraformation of a similar planet, only a few thousand light-years away, into Earth II.

Earth II was kind of an ethical slur on the face of human politics - not everybody thought it was okay just to go to a new planet, pronounce it as yours, and carry on as normal. Therefore the Doctor had kind of stayed away.

Besides, it only lasted a life of six hundred years until colonies just started going to other planets and constellations and moons and anywhere but here. The human race moved in, stopped the night, and moved out, essentially.

As he landed the TARDIS, he knew there was an issue already.

The TARDIS had made an unhappy bong noise. It was a very distressing bong noise.

He exited the TARDIS cautiously, but was met with nothing. Nothing but a quiet, open, empty road.

The houses were still cramped together, just like back on Earth. The sky was blue, the rain just starting to fall. Everything was very well copied. Carbon copied, almost.

Not knowing where to start, he started to drift down the road.

'Hello?' he called out, completely unaware of where he was going, or when someone would appear, fine as day, going about their normal business. He really hoped people still went about their normal business.

Technology was as advanced as anywhere else in the universe by now, so he couldn't understand why there was no one.

Until he heard the scream.

It was a child's scream. A young child, screaming like that, dead ahead. The Doctor bolted, screwdriver at the ready, towards the source of the sound.

Another scream gave away which house it was coming from. The Doctor burst in through the front door, and quickly saw the small boy, huddled in the corner, in a ball.

'Hello?' the Doctor said, as soft as he could. 'I'm the Doctor. Are you alright?'

The boy whimpered and made a slight growl.

The Doctor approached, trying to identify a cause for the boy's apparent pain. 'What's your name?' he asked.

The boy growled again, still hiding his face.

The Doctor was close enough to touch him now, and reached out a hand, just to place on the boy's shoulder. Give some comfort.

The boy grabbed the Doctor's hand as it came close, pulled him in and screamed in the Doctor's face. The boy's face, twisted and snarling, resembled a wolf's - carnivorous and hungry.

Pulling back as hard as he could, the Doctor recoiled, stepping away. The boy stood, his legs much longer than they should be at his age - he was maybe seven, but at least six foot tall. Then he was seven foot tall. He was growing.

Not just upwards, either. His chest expanded. He wasn't a little boy anymore - he was a monster. Hair grew everywhere, his hands sprouted claws and his clothes tore off him.

'Werewolf!' the Doctor whined, running away as fast as he could, out of the house, down the road and towards his TARDIS.

The boy - now the wolf - chased after him, crashing through the doorway that was far too small for him like it was nothing. It cascaded down the road at the Doctor like an avalanche, tumbling at him without avail.

When the Doctor had neared his TARDIS, the wolf caught up to him, taking him by the legs and holding him upside down.

'Help me?' the wolf pleaded, it's voice gruff and completely juxtaposing the soft tone that it carried. 'Please?'

'Erm,' the Doctor was a little lost for words. 'Of course. I'm the Doctor!'

'Oh,' the wolf put him down. 'Okay.'

'What happened to you?' the Doctor asked.

'Same as everyone...' the wolf cringed. It looked like it was in pain, grabbing it's chest and whining. Howling.

The Doctor dropped to the floor, scrambling up as the wolf tore into itself. As quick as the burst of anger had come, it left. The wolf fell quiet.

It dropped to the floor.

The Doctor stood in the open, wide road of this faux-Earth, watching as a terrified wolf stopped breathing.


	26. E4C2: Warzone

A little startled by the events that had just taken place, the Doctor wasn't sure what to do next. Was that werewolf the reason this place was deserted? It was only a child... a little boy.

What the hell just happened?

He scanned the enormous body - no life signs. It registered as human, but this little boy looked nothing like a little human boy any more.

Genetic mutation?

Wolf-host?

Genuine werewolf species?

Probably none of the above, knowing his luck.

The Doctor scanned the surrounding area - there were a few life signs, but they were mainly pets. Dogs, cats, fish, lobsters (as was the trend). No humans. Maybe this boy-wolf really had chased everyone away.

He decided that being out in the open wasn't the smartest of decisions, if there were werewolves and transforming children dotted around.

Backing into the TARDIS, the Doctor took himself to three months earlier, and stuck himself in the neighbouring large city, atop the roof of a building.

Stepping out into the soft wind and warm air, the Doctor viewed the cityscape as a war-zone.

'This isn't right,' he said, unsure of how he should proceed.

The city he could see resembled London, but it's tall buildings were taller, shinier and more impressive. Some of it was still mid-construction, however. As though they'd only got half way through it when whatever was going on started - fire burned through the landscape, the half-built buildings were charred and crumpled, and sounds of bullets and roars could be heard from miles away.

The place was unholy. Apocalyptic.

'Who are you?' came a voice, accusingly, from behind him. The Doctor turned on his heel to see a young man, maybe twenty or so, with a large gus in both hands focused on the Doctor.

'I'm the Doctor.'

'Medical class?' the boy asked. 'You shouldn't be up here. Dangerous.'

'No, no. I'm a special kind of Doctor. Blue box, timey wimey kind of Doctor.'

'What?' the boy moved forwards, nodding with his gun. 'Show me your hands.' The Doctor held up his hands, smiling. 'And your teeth.' The Doctor bared his teeth. 'Human.'

'Wrong!'

'What?!' the boy looked like he was going to pull the trigger.

'Not human. Time-Lord. Very similar, though. Same faces. You got that from our side.'

'What's your name?'

'The Doctor.'

'Doctor what?'

'Just the Doctor,' he smiled. 'What's yours?'

'Miles. Cadet Killen Miles.'

'Right. Killen Miles,' the Doctor nodded to the burning cityscape. 'What exactly is going on?'

'What do you mean?'

'End of the world, am I right?' he sighed. 'Always is.'

'People are changing,' Miles said. 'Have been for weeks, where have you been, under a rock?'

'Bit of a hermit, actually. Changing? Changing how?'

'Into nightmares,' Miles said, dropping his gun slightly. 'Everything you've ever been scared of, people are turning into them.'

'Right...' the Doctor's smile died. 'But you're still pointing the gun at me?'

'Well, yeah,' Miles said. 'No idea who you are. Could be anyone. Could be about to change.'

'I'm not.'

'How do I know?'

'I'm not human.'

'Not just humans changing. Everything, everyone. It's everywhere.'

'What's doing it?'

'We don't know how, or why but...' Miles pointed with his gun to a building across from the one they were on. On the side was a spray-painted black Z shape. 'People are calling it the Zorro curse.'

'Are they?'

'Whenever it moves to a new city, that insignia turns up. Everywhere. Sometimes it's even on people, when they change. We shoot them, and we look and the have a black Z on their arm or something. No one can explain it. No one has had the chance.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I'm not exactly high-up, but from what I can put together, the curse is moving to places where there are scientists. Getting rid of everyone who might be able to figure out what this whole thing is.'

'It's global?'

'Might as well be,' Miles said. 'Seeing as you're not violent, I'm going to have to put you into custody.'

'Right. Just a sec,' the Doctor locked the TARDIS with a click of his fingers. 'Love doing that. Now, where to?'

'Down here,' Miles said, pointing at the stairway that led down into the building beneath them. 'You know where you are, right?'

'Not really.'

'You're standing on top of the last known uncontaminated hospital in the city.'

'Uncontaminated?'

'There's a theory, that this whole thing is a virus,' Miles explained as he led the Doctor down into the dimply-lit concrete stairwell. 'That it's infecting people. Nobody understands how, or what the motivation is behind it or why there would be a virus that does this but, it's as good as any other ideas we have. By which I mean nobody has any real idea what it is.'

'Do all of the creatures die?'

'They are people, Doctor.'

'Maybe not.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, there have been cases I've seen where people are literally swapped for monsters, letting them get inside homes, into public places. Maybe that's this.'

'Doesn't sound right. This happens gradually.'

'Is there a running theme, or species, or something?'

'Yeah, actually, there is,' Miles said a they moved from the stairway into an open, clean room, where people in the same uniform as Miles stood, guarding patients. The sounds of a war-hospital surrounded them immediately, intruding the quiet that had dominated the roof and the stairs. This was the thick of it.

'Nightmares,' Miles finished.


	27. E4C3: The Three Doctors

'Nightmares?' the Doctor asked as they walked into the sick bay. Everywhere was strewn with bloodied civilians, presumably the victims of monsters roaming the streets.

'Every time it's something different,' Miles told him. 'Even when it's the same monster, it's different rules. You get three zombies, two can run and one is barely shuffling. Of the two that can run, one is saying 'brains', the other isn't.'

'That makes no sense,' the Doctor thought, trying to decipher a pattern.

'There are common ones,' Miles continued. 'Like zombies, or vampires. Good, ol'-fashioned monsters. Then there are aliens, like the Daleks, the Cybermen, anything that has invaded us at some point in history.'

'So it's fears,' the Doctor said.

'We have no way of fighting something that is not only always changing, but it's spreading, too.'

'Plus they're people to start with,' the Doctor reminded him. 'How does it spread?'

'We don't know.'

'All you know is that it's spreading, and that it's turning people into their own worst fear?'

'That's the theory, yeah.' Miles paused just before they reached the heavily guarded glass doors, one of which was smashed. 'By the way,' he said. 'What's your name?'

'The Doctor.'

'No, but really. 'Doctor' is just a title, you must have a real name.'

'Not me!' the Doctor smiled.

'And you think you can help?'

'I can try. I do this a lot, actually.'

'What's your expertise?' Miles offered him a gun he had on his belt - one of four.

'Anything without those,' the Doctor grimaced, looking disappointed at Miles.

'So, you're a tech-guy, then?'

'I could do tech, yeah.'

'Bit of a thinker?'

'I like to think so!' the Doctor smiled, as though expecting appreciation.

Miles smiled and patted the Doctor on the shoulder. 'Then we can use you. We can use all the help we can get.'

'Right, well. Put me in a room with the cleverest people you have.'

'Wait-' someone with a deep, harrowing voice boomed from behind them. Miles and the Doctor turned to see one of Miles' superior officers standing, looking terrified, gun aimed at the Doctor's left eyeball. 'How did you get out?'

'Out?' the Doctor asked, frowning at the gun, not showing much fear (not that he didn't feel it). 'Out of where?'

'I'll show you.' The officer pulled the trigger. Darkness.

...

The Doctor shot up, his head spinning. It soon resided, and he touched the tiny scab in-between his eyebrows - a puncture wound. He had been tranquilised.

The room was squalid, damp and miserable. A single glass window stood between him and Miles, as well as the officer who had shot him.

'That really hurt, you know,' the Doctor said.

'Yes, well. You're not the first Doctor I've shot.'

'Am I not...' the Doctor looked around. He wasn't able to move much, for the chains holding his ankles and wrists, but he could see, even in the dark, two others in the room.

Not just anyone else, either.

There were two other Doctors. Two version of him, sat limp and still.

'They were screaming the last time we had them both awake,' the man said. 'Wonder what they'll do now you're here.'

'But that's me!' the Doctor said, trying to point.

'And you're them.'

'No, no no no. They are me. I am the Doctor, they are fakes... they must be...'

'Fakes?'

'Well, this virus or pandemic you have going on, it changes people, ordinary humans, into whatever they fear most.'

'If you are these people's greatest fear, then I suppose it's a good idea to keep you in there anyway.'

The nameless officer walked away, leaving Miles standing, watching him.

'I didn't know,' Miles said.

'Didn't know they had copies of me on lock-down?'

'I didn't know what the copies had done.' His voice was being twisted by the intercom, but the Doctor could still hear his voice crack.

The Doctor watched the other two, silhouettes in the dark. When would they wake? What would they do, how would they react? Was he really their greatest fear?

'What did they do?'

'They gave themselves in.'

'Gave themselves in?'

'Both of them. They told an officer that they had changed, that they were no longer who they were, that they had been taken by the virus, but also that they were in full mental-working order. And they locked them both down. It wasn't until they saw each other that they freaked, started screaming. Officer Wayy just told me that they had to tranq them, same as you. Same dose, too.'

'So they can think?'

'Not when they see each other,'

'So why are they together?'

'We only have one cell,' Miles shrugged. 'If you haven't noticed, it's kind of an emergency situation.'

A shuffle from the Doctor to the left caused both Miles and the Doctor to flinch, unsure of how this was going to play out.

'Okay, Miles?'

'Yes, Doctor?'

'I need you to get me out.'

'I don't have clearance.'

'Then get someone who does, because I'm not a fake, I'm not a monster, I'm not a copy.'

'I don't have clearance-'

'Wha... one the 'fake' Doctor who had shuffled was starting to awake, groggy and slow.

'Go get someone,' the Doctor ordered. Miles left, leaving the Doctor, alone in a room with these two questionable companions.

'Hello,' the Doctor said, staying as calm as he could seem. 'I'm the...'

'Doctor,' finished the fake. 'I know. Me too.'

The fake Doctor started to laugh, looking up to the Doctor, but he stopped dead as their eyes met. 'You're really him... Oh God... Oh GOD!'

The fake started to scream, an ear-ripping scream that made the Doctor wish he could cover his ears. His hands trapped behind him, he was only able to squirm, yelling too.

Thank God they were tied down, too, or who knows how they would have dealt with him.


	28. E4C4: The Face of the Devil

The screams coming from his own voice across the room made the Doctor convince himself he was going mad. How could there be another version of him?

Maybe if the screams would stop he could think straight, but right now... now the howls of terror in this tiny room pulled any clear thinking directly from him, replacing it with confused and bitter madness.

The other 'fake' Doctor had started to rouse, blinking awake. He took one look at the fake Doctor, screaming, and then to him. He knew in an instant that it was the real Doctor who had joined them, and did nothing but stare in silence.

The contradiction was baffling.

Miles eventually returned with Officer Wayy, who took one look at the situation and burst in. The screaming Doctor didn't flinch, didn't seem to notice. The silent one's gaze didn't falter from the Doctor at all. Wayy went largely unnoticed until he injected both the 'fake' Doctors with some kind of serum that forced them to fall asleep.

'Why are they here?' the Doctor asked, popping his ears, loving the relief of silence.

'They are the only two to have changed and not died.'

'Not died?'

'Most conversions, people who have changed into their worst fears, die after a day. Two, at most. We've had these two for longer and, well. There's no change.'

'That's the most special thing about them?'

'And that they are exactly the same.'

'What do you mean?'

Miles stepped in. 'Well, usually, Doctor,' he began, with a silent kind-of dispute from Wayy for interrupting him. 'Usually people have similar fears, like vampires. But they differ from vampire to vampire: some have their canines pointed, some have the teeth in front. Some have all of their teeth pointed. Some are in leather, some have long black capes. But these two are completely identical.'

The Doctor looked at them, both silent in sleep, and tried to think. Who could be that scared of him? Who was so fearful that every other nightmare, every other alien and monster in the universe was trumped by him. Who feared him that much?

He could think of creatures that hated him, easily. The Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Weeping Angels, a million others. But actual fear, that's a different case. What had he ever done that could warrant fear on this level - or at least, what had he done that had left survivors?

He snapped out of those thoughts. Those were the thoughts that haunted him at night, but they wouldn't do much good here. They weren't the real problem. In fact, they might be the solution.

'I need to talk to them,' the Doctor said.

'But every time you try-' Miles was cut off.

'They scream, yes. So get them both, tied behind a desk. Cover their mouths.'

'Who put you in charge?' Wayy asked, crossing his arms.

'I just did. My name's the Doctor. Apparently, I'm scary. Maybe you don't want to find out why.'

Miles moved away instantly, going off to find a room they could use for the three Doctors. Wayy seemed insulted by the Doctor, and a little worried.

'We'll have it sorted,' Wayy told him.

'Right. Good.' The Doctor shook his head. He was feeling strained, and he knew he had overreacted far past what he should have. Did he just threaten them?

Soon, the Doctor was moved into a room only a small way away, down a wooden-floor corridor which was in desperate need of a paint job. The room itself stank of mould, and he waited patiently as they tied him to his chair, which was nailed to the floor, and moved the other two in, cuffing them to their chairs on the other side, facing him.

He was sat for maybe half an hour, waiting for them to wake, in which he thought about how this was happening. The most popular theory was a disease, something that can spread fast. Makes sense. Changes you into your own worst nightmare, that makes less sense. And then you die within two days - unless you change into the Doctor. That makes almost no sense at all. Why him? Why these two? Why do they survive?

Once they had both awoken, and were screaming behind their bonds, the Doctor began to talk.

'You both know me,' he said. 'But you know the wrong me.'

They seemed to stop screaming, but were no less scared than they were. Their eyes were howling.

'If I take off those gags, will you scream?' he asked.

One of them didn't respond, the other shook his head. Both their eyes were dark now, but they still looked as though they were looking for a way out. Their faces and states kept changing, the Doctor concluded. They were insane.

He looked to Miles, who was stood by the door, guarding them. He moved and removed the gags from both the Doctors sitting across from him.

'Right then,' the Doctor said. He didn't know where to go first. He'd start with a general question. 'Do you know where you are?'

'No,' one answered. The other didn't respond - the same one who stayed silent last time.

'Neither do I. Miles?'

Miles stepped forwards again. 'You are in the lock-down section of the Pyrman facility - New London.' He thought before adding. 'Earth Two.'

'Earth Two,' the Doctor echoed. 'Do you know what Earth Two is?'

'It's a scheme,' said the Doctor who was talking. 'A plan made up by the Pyrman Corporation.' His voice was dizzyingly familiar to the Doctor, but held more malice than he was used to. 'When the sun started to expand, there was a corporate war. 'How do we bottle-up and sell this', you know? One company moved them to a 'Starship UK'. And New Earth. And Earth Two.'

'Only humans could privatise the apocalypse,' the silent Doctor said, with a dark smile.

'But you didn't know you were here?'

'Didn't know where the hell I was,' the first Doctor continued. 'One minute, I was at home, back on Starship UK. Then it goes very, very dark. And now I'm here.'

'Where did you wake up?'

'On the street, being handled by an officer. They asked me if this was my face, and showed me a mirror. I saw the face of the devil, wearing my emotions, and I freaked. I don't think I stopped screaming until you made me.'

'So I'm the devil?' the Doctor smiled, but he was by no means happy. He was mortified. Not surprised though.

'For my people, yes.'

'Human?'

'No.'

'Then why were you on Starship UK?'

'Earth wasn't home just to humans, Doctor. We were a minority, but we were there.'

'What was your race?'

'How can you do it?'

'What was your race?'

'Destroy so many lives, leave an entire species in pain-'

'What was it?'

'-And not even remember. You had different face, but we watched you. We came to Earth once the politics was settled, all to watch you.'

'Who are you?!'

'I,' the 'fake' Doctor said, 'Was a Sycorax.'


	29. E4C5: Pyrman Corp

'A Sycorax?'

'Aye.'

'As in, like, big skull-y heads, staffs and sword,s flying islands?'

'That was the old days, Doctor. The days you murdered.'

'Christmas Day. I stopped the invasion of Earth, and you were leaving...'

'You gave the command for our slaughter,' the Sycorax Doctor spat. 'You stood as our high Priest was destroyed, the ship. Fathers and Mothers. Sycorax heroes.'

'I tried to stop it-'

'Don't you lie, Doctor. You could have saved them.'

'I tried. I'm so sorry.'

'You didn't grieve. You didn't mourn those deaths. You sauntered off, into the cosmos. What disgust you must feel within you.'

The three Doctors sat, all tied to this table. The Doctor watched his copies. The Sycorax, silently fuming at him, and the silent one, who seemingly enjoyed the angst and anger.

'Do you think about the families of your adversaries?' the Sycorax Doctor asked, now more pained than angry. 'This is why I fear you. You murdered everything I know. You are my devil, Doctor.'

The other Doctor started to laugh. He threw his head back, choking on laughter, to the faces of the other two.

'Did you know,' the laughing Doctor said. 'That the Sycorax, after the events of your human Christmas, never recovered and-' he started laughing too much to talk. His chuckles juxtaposed the dank room so oddly that the Doctor found the noise almost hypnotic. It was entrancing. 'They,' he coughed, gathering his words. 'They couldn't restart their economy, their warfare started to drop in quality, so they were invaded. The whole place went down the drain!' He sang the last phrase, bobbing his head.

The Sycorax Doctor looked like he could throw up.

'What are you then? Not human, I assume,' the Doctor asked.

'Of course not, Doc.' He smiled. 'I'm a companion of yours. Not gonna say who.'

'A companion?'

'I travelled with you. Happily. Then I realised, through all the pain and excitement, that everything we did had consequences, Doctor.'

'Consequences?' The Doctor was having flashbacks to Seripho. Was this one of his lessons?

'You were so caring for those you liked, but the ones you didn't? God help them. And after a while, I guess you get bored. Leave us like dogs. Panting on the street. You break our lives, make yourself everything we care about. And then it's over. What did you expect?'

'What did I look like?'

'You mean did I travel with another regeneration? No. It was you. You, all you.'

'What was your name?'

'I can't tell you that.'

'And why not?'

'Because of paradoxes. I tell you my name, you'll go off looking for me. That's not how it happens. I save your ass and nd you repay me in fear. You are my worst nightmare, Doctor, because you have already killed me.'

The Doctor sat back, looking into these two people's eyes. One had been of an alien race, intending to watch and report on the Doctor whenever he showed his devilish face. The other was one of his friends who he'd hurt, and had turned against him. What was the chance that they were both here, on this planet?

'How did you get here?' he asked them both. 'Either of you. How did you get to this planet?'

'I was given an invite,' the Sycorax Doctor said. 'I'm a politician back home, and I was invited as an ambassador to this planet, one of the Human Race's new colony planets.'

'Who invited you?'

'Pyrman Corp, the funding corporation behind this planet.'

'What about you?' he asked the laughing Doctor.

'I was sent an invitation too. Pyrman Corp.'

'You have the invites? How were you invited here?'

'Digislip,' they both said. They looked at each other.

'Give me them.' the Doctor ordered. They hesitated for a moment, but both Doctors retrieved a small, metal slip with a round pressure pad on them. The DOctor scanned both digislips, squinting.

'What do you expect to find?' the Sycorax Doctor asked.

'They're fakes,' the Doctor mumbled. 'Someone else brought you here. But why? For me? Why would they do this on the off-chance I was coming?'

'Why would who?' one asked.

'What if they knew you were coming,' the other suggested. They were actually being helpful.

'Seripho and gang, probably. No idea, really. And if it is him, then he seems to know something I don't. He has a way of tracking me. He knows where I am, when I am. It's him.'

'You're certain.'

'Almost.'

The two other Doctors leaned in, and they both seemed to realise they were helping their worst nightmare at the same time, and sat back.

'If Seripho is here, and he brought you here with the intention of you meeting me, as me, then he definitely is the source of this virus. Killed a whole world just to prove a point.'

'To you,' the Sycorax Doctor said.

'And you wonder why you terrify us,' the other Doctor said.

'You go places.'

'Make friends.'

'Make enemies.'

'And you destroy worlds.'

'You cause revolutions.'

'Murder leaders.'

'Ruin allies.'

'Changes time.'

'Scar space.'

'You are the real plague, Doctor.'

'You are our nightmare. You scare the Universe into a coalition against you.'

'Doctor?' Miles stood by the door still, watching. 'Wayy is signalling to me, your time's up.'

Miles walked over and released the Doctor first, walking him out of the room.

The Doctor caught one last look from the two Doctors in the room. Their eyes followed him until he was out of sight. They still looked like him.

He was still a monster.


	30. E4C6: Looks like a Pickle

'What the hell was that in there?' Wayy huffed, demanding a quick answer.

'What, are you upset that I found a good few answers in one interview? Took me, what, ten minutes?'

'You found nothing. You've wasted our time, Doctor.' He turned to Miles. 'Put him back in holding.'

'But-' Miles tried to fight, but Wayy's face said he wasn't ready to be contested.

'I found a lot, Wayy,' the Doctor said. 'I discovered that Pyrman Corp is inviting people to this planet with the intention of making them into me. I also figure that it's being headed by someone with whom I have previous.'

'Previous?'

'Seripho. A hired gun, yes, but a clever one. He knows how to get what he wants. He was farming bodies at the Garden, farming emotions at Broadplow Institute. He's attacked people I know in the past, and knows an awful lot about me. It would be easy for him to come here, knowing I would turn up, and set up a trap like this.'

'Are you selfish enough to think that this whole thing is for you?'

'I'm the Doctor, mister Wayy. Some people think that's more important than it is. I know that. I personally don't see why they bother - I'm not special. But I'm wanted.'

'If it turns out that there is someone in Pyrman Corp out to get you, and is destroying a whole world just to get to you, then you will be held responsible, Doctor.'

The Doctor gives a solemn nod as Miles leads him away.

'I'm sorry,' the Doctor said to him, turning so they were face-to-face.

'What for?'

'This,' the Doctor spins, hitting Miles square in the temple. He drops, hitting the floor like a brick. The Doctor slipped out of the handcuffs - he'd unlocked them a while ago - and ran off down the corridor, knowing he had to get away.

He headed for the roof, having to avoid anyone in a black suit with extreme caution. It was surprisingly easy to make it back up, and so see the TARDIS, cordoned off with tape, just waiting for him.

He took a moment to appreciate the fact that the armed forces still used yellow tape to ward off people

Tearing it off, the Doctor leapt inside and started flicking switches and pushing buttons, not to travel, but to record a message.

Once everything was set, he pulled the monitor around so he knew that his face as being broadcast everywhere.

'This is the Doctor,' he said, smiling. 'An open letter, directed at Mister Seripho. Now, I'm not entirely sure what you're planning here on Earth II, but I want you to know that I'm going to stop it. If you think that mass murder is going to get by anyone, I suggest you look me up. I'm always there, Seripho. I always stop the bad guy. And I'll stop you.'

He pushed the button, stopping the dispersion of the message. He had broadcast his face everywhere now, Seripho was bound to hear it. He was listening in, surely.

He was about to set coordinates for the street when the TARDIS door was knocked upon.

'Doctor!'

It was Miles.

'Doctor, you need to come out. Wayy is convinced that you have something to do with this virus, he want's to put you into custody and have you executed!'

The Doctor nodded. Understandable decision. And he appreciated the fact that Miles had come to tell him that.

But he had no intention of going back into custody. He had to find out what was going on at Pyrman Corp.

He bounced over to the doors, opening them just a crack.

'Miles?' he hissed through the door. 'You there?'

'Uh, yeah?'

'Alone?'

'Yeah.'

The Doctor coughed, straightened up, and opened the door wide. Miles looked like he was going to hit him for a moment, but then looked inside. His eyes widened. The Doctor had missed that reaction.

'Wow,' Miles said. 'That is impressive.'

'I know!' the Doctor said, thankfully.

'What is it, temporal displacement?'

'Of a sort.'

'Separate dimension...'

'Go on.'

'Allowing there to be a larger space within the smaller... it's bigger on the inside.'

'Yes!' the Doctor beamed.

Miles lifted an eyebrow, and the Doctor jumped back to his initial intention.

'Right, so, there's something going on at Pyrman Corp.'

'That Seripho person you were on about. War-Lord?'

'Maybe. Maybe just a hired gun. Maybe a right-hand man. Not really sure. I know he knows more than me, and that's scary.'

'So what does this thing do? I mean, it's just a box.'

'TARDIS, it's called. Travels with me, through all of time and space. Wanna see it drop me in the heart of Pyrman Corp's laboratory?'

'How can it?'

'Give it a minute...' the Doctor held up his screwdriver and...

Nothing.

He seemed disappointed the longer it didn't do anything. He frowned at it.

'Should be taking this long...' he tapped it, hitting it against the side of his hand. 'Bloody thing, can't even do wood...'

It beeped, flashing green twice. The Doctor grinned at Miles, and then pushed the stem upwards.

A crackle of sound.

'Dear Doctor,' Seripho's voice boomed around the TARDIS, as though he was there with them. 'I got your message and I have to say... bravo. Touching. And terrifying. I'm shaking, of course. Can't help it. Anyway, this was never about you. Okay, so it was a little about you. We invited a few of your biggest fans over to the planet so you'd turn up. It was the perfect incentive we had - you just love a good mystery. Alas, the secret is that we don't actually care about you that much. Our point was made to you, mostly. If you want to see what the next stage of this whole thing it, I suggest you come to Pyrman Corp, the building on your left, the big one. Looks like a pickle.

There you'll find out what's been going on. It's been too fun, though, right?!'

The crackle burst again, making Miles jump.

Silence.


	31. E4C7: Blood and Gore and Bone

The TARDIS fell quiet.

'That was Seripho?' Miles asked after a moment.

'Yeah...' the Doctor said quietly, thinking. His eyes shot to Miles. 'I need back-up.'

'Back-up?'

'Yes, yes. Back-up. Seripho targetted me, but he didn't realise what it was doing. He was trying to sho me I'm a monster, and it worked. I scare people.'

'And you want to show him why,' Miles finished.

The Doctor nodded. 'I need the other two.'

'The other two... What, you mean the two versions of you?'

'The Sycorax and my companion. I need them to see why I do what I do. That sacrifices are needed, yes, but that, after all, we stop the terror. We can stop the virus. We can stop Seripho, together.'

'Okay... how do we do that?'

'Where did Wayy take the two Doctors after I was done with them?'

'I assume to their holding cell. They share it.'

'Okay. Close the doors,' he ordered. He stopped for a second, feeling something in him. He felt anger. Bubbling under him, like a pressure, pushing him over the edge. Slowly but surely.

Miles closed the TARDIS doors, and the Doctor started whirring controls and pulling levers, dragging the TARDIS off the rooftop and into the cell the two Doctor were being kept in.

They both recoiled as the TARDIS materialized into their cell, looking over them, staring.

The Doctor emerged from it. 'I need your help.'

'Our help?' one said.

'All three of us, we need to stop the person who changed you into this. Into me. We can stop it, maybe even reverse it. But I need you.'

One of the Doctors lifted his hands, showing the Doctor his cuffs. The Doctor soniced them, setting him free.

'Can I count on you two?' he asked, looking at them. He freed the second Doctor, and they stood to meet him.

'Can you turns us back?'

'I can't promise it, but I can definitely stop it happening from anyone else.'

'You have a plan?' Miles asked, from within the TARDIS.

'Never! I have a direction and TARDIS, three big heads and my own, and, frankly, nothing to lose.'

The Doctor offered his hands to the two Doctors. One took it. The other walked past him, straight into the TARDIS.

'Bingo!' he said to the one shaking his hand, showing him inside.

They walked in, looking around, not as amazed as the Doctor had hoped. He reminded himself that one of them was a companion, and so knew exactly what the TARDIS was. The other was a Sycorax, however, and that one seemed to be looking around, watching the spinning cogs of the central pillar, observing the twisting, shining lights.

It is a beautiful room, after all.

The Doctor told them all to hang on to something, and set off again. The TARDIS rattled and spun, throwing them around, before stopped dead all of a sudden - it fell quiet.

'I've missed that noise,' one of the Doctors said wistfully. He smiled, then looked to the Doctor, noticing his gaze. 'I'm allowed to miss the TARDIS, Doctor.'

'Who wouldn't?' he smiled. He felt like he was starting to win them over.

He took the two Doctors aside, leaving Miles to look at the monitors. Miles stepped over, glancing at them as they drew up the plan or whatever, and viewed what was going on outside.

Guards had assembled, and were readying to blow the doors open. He didn't have a chance to shout to the Doctor when they set of the explosives, but it didn't matter. The doors didn't budge. Miles barely heard the noise from inside.

'They won't even knock it,' the Doctor said, walking over. All three of them, all in unison, stepped towards the doors, took a breath, and pushed them forwards.

Thirty guard, all dressed in black, almost identical to Miles, raised their guns and had them prepared to fire.

Not one of the Doctors flinched.

Miles wasn't sure which one was the real Doctor anymore.

This was clever.

'We're here to see Seripho,' all three of them said in unison. They all had a little bounce to them, rocking on their heels. It was impressive to watch.

'Bring 'em up,' Miles heard coming through the apparent leading guard's walkie-talkie (yes, they still had them).

The guards surrounded the three Doctors and Miles and lead them out of the small room they had landed in, into a lab two doors down a corridor.

It was huge, pristine white with a strong smell of disinfectant. Three large wall-mounted pods were opposite, and in the one on the left stood Seripho, smiling.

'You made it,'

'Wouldn't miss it,' one Doctor said.

'Like the pod,' another said.

'Very Star-Trek,' said the third.

Seripho frowned. He hadn't expected this. 'Well this is an odd development. didn't think you'd bring them, your... counterparts.'

All three shrugged. 'You've been very apt at predicting us,' said one.

'It's scary,' said another.

'But I guess it gives us an edge,' said the third.

'Which lead into our next question...'

'What's in the other two pods?'

'Or who?'

Seripho seemed to have trouble keeping up, but he smiled and, rather graciously, called for all four of them to move forwards. Miles had his hand on his gun, just in case. He knew the Doctors wouldn't approve, but there you go.

'Better question,' Seripho said. 'What do the pods do.'

He started unbuttoning his leather jacket that covered him neck to foot, at which point everyone started to feel a little uncomfortable.

However, once he had revealed his collar, it started to become clear - his entire body from the neck downwards was stripped of flesh, hanging off him like shredded cloth. Gore and blood and bone, all mangled in his torso, all making Miles question how the hell he was even still alive.

Seripho smiled as the pod closed around him, shutting him away.


	32. E4C8: Tess

Miles watched as all three Doctors moved forwards, all with a gangly step and an off-center lean. They weren't just copying the Doctor, surely? They couldn't be. It was too perfect.

He followed them to the pod, as all three inspected it. No sound came from inside, but as one of them tapped on the misty glass, there was a tap back. Seripho was alive and awake in there.

A different Doctor looked to the rest of the room. All of the guards still had their guns armed on them, shielding away the lab-workers all around. Messing.

Miles watched as one of the women in white-coats pushed a big, green button. 'Is that a good button?' Miles asked no one in particular as a whirring sound began.

'I'm guessing no,' said one Doctor.

The pod started to glow slightly, the glass gleaming bright. As did the one next to it.

A scream.

All the Doctors quickly started inspecting the pod, one with their sonic screwdriver, one with a magnifying glass, and one with some device that resembled a hearing aid. They buzzed around the mean as it whirred, anxiously jumping each time Seripho screamed from inside.

'There's no way in,' said a woman with long, fine white hair. She was young, in her body at least. But Miles could feel something old about her. 'No way out, either, until that girl there pushes that green button again.'

'Then you push it,' said one of the Doctors to the woman. The worker didn't seem to notice.

'Who are you?' asked another.

'I'm the one who manufactured the micro-organisms that created two of you, Doctors.'

'It was you?'

'Strange, though, don't you think?' She stepped forwards, past the guards. 'How the mighty Doctor can create unrivalled fear in both his enemies and his friends, and then they come running when he calls. Fascinating.'

'Why did you do it and how do we stop it?'

'Oh those two boring questions,' she waved the question aside. 'More interestingly, how did you not notice? I mean, from what the big man in the pod has told me, you've met Adam, back in the Institute. I gave a technology addict nanogenes so he could create his own little hell. That was me. Seripho's the master's gun, I'm the master's big noggin.'

'Master?'

'Don't worry, not that one. Oh, yeah, we know all about Master Master, the TimeLord's second-greatest failure. After you.'

'Then who?'

'No idea. I've never met them. Seripho never calls it the 'master', that's my nickname. We weren't even given a name to mutter under our breath. Just an order and a death-threat.'

'You're being kept here against your will?'

'To start with, yes,' she said, nodding to the guards. 'Seripho has his fingers in deep with the whole Pyrman corp thing. Had me rip apart this world with an accelerated nano-gene virus.'

'You used nano-genes.'

'Like I said, how did you not notice?'

All three Doctors were talking interchangeably now, and Miles had lost track of who he thought was whom.

'Anyway, once Seripho made it clear to me how much power he had, being able to time-jump and all, I figured that, in the name of science, I had better just enjoy myself. Made things a whole lot easier.'

'You murdered a world,' Miles jump in.

'And how many has he killed?' She looked at Miles with piercing eyes, breaking through any illusions he had about the Doctor. 'He's a monster. Look at all the people he's frightened.'

'I try to help,' said all three Doctors.

'Wow, that's some pretty impressive mimicery, eh Doc?'

'What's the end-game?' Miles aksed. 'Why destroy a world, why this one, what's the point?'

'Well, as you know, Doctors, Seripho has been picking apart the human being in many different ways. Biologically. Mentally. Emotionally. Different experiments, collections of data, all over the universe. This world is the last one - to see if it works across different species.'

'You made a disease that creates a million genetically unique creatures, to run an experiment,' one Doctor said with disgust.

'Yes I did. All the variations we could ever need of human genealogy. We take a few, see if our machine works, and then we kill them. Ended programming the nano-genes to die after a few days, unless of course they ended up as you, Doc. Seripho was very particular about that.'

'Why?' the Doctors all asked.

'Because he needs you. One of you, at least. You are a catalyst.'

'For what?'

'No idea,' she shrugged. 'Once Seripho is done in there, I get a free ride off to Heldicon Six, with a heafty paycheck. I'm out, in...' she checked her watch. 'Three... two... one, and...!'

The pod stopped whirring.

'What is it, what did they do to him?' Miles asked.

The pod opened, sliding apart to present Seripho, grinning. 'They rebuilt me, boy.' He opened his jacket, showing his unscarred, white skin. Perfect.

'Reconstruction is, for extents and purposes, pretty simple,' the woman stated. 'The real test is pure construction.'

'Push the button, Tess,' Seripho ordered.

Tess, she was called, moved a slider to the left, and pushed the button again.

'What are you doing, what's in there?' Miles yelled as the other pod started whirring, glowing brighter than Seripho's had.

'Pure construction,' the Doctor said. 'They're making a human body.'

'But I thought cloning was easy,' Miles said.

'From biological DNA, yes,' Tess said. 'We're building a body based on mental processes. Thought, trapped in a program, ready for us to build it a body.'

'That's why you needed the tests into human biology. Biology is simple, it's just science, but you were looking for the relationship-' started a Doctor.

'Between the body and the mind,' finished a second.

'And we found it!' Seripho chuckled, watching as the light intensified. A scream brewed, releasing under the heat of the machine, burning out. A scream the Doctor knew.


	33. E4C9: Basically

The scream grew, howling until the hairs on the back of Miles' neck stood to attention. It was harrowing, scratching on the inside of his head. Clawing away.

'What mind?' asked a Doctor. 'Whose mind is it? Why are they so important, why would you save them, go to all this trouble to build a body for them?'

'She promised me a body,' Seripho said. 'When the planet exploded, she said she could save me. Save us both.'

'She?'

Seripho tapped an earpiece he had, tucked away in his ear. 'She talks to me. How do you think we communicate? Originally it was just 'it', but now... now she tells me she feels herself becoming true.'

The Doctor with the sonic screwdriver pointed it at Seripho's ear, making the sound explode in the room.

The first thing any of them recognised was the voice. That Dalek screech. The anger and the rage. But it was laughing. The Dalek's laughter was thrown across the room.

'Who are you?' he asked, calling out, knowing 'she' could hear him.

'She won't reply, Doctor,' Tess said. 'Right now, the nanogenes are re-creating her nervous system. That takes some doing, so she's kind of busy.'

'You made her vocal chords before her nerves?' Miles asked.

'Start at the middle and work outwards, daddy always said. Some of them were doing the vocal chords, others doing the nerves, some organs, veins, arteries, spine. We do the vocal chords so we can hear when the nerves kick in, when they start screaming.'

One of the Doctors turned away from the pod, staring at Seripho accusingly. 'What did you mean 'planet exploded', what planet. What were you doing?'

Seripho smiled. Time to tell. 'I was a scavenger, Doctors. Picking up spare parts as they float around in orbit of planets. Scum. Then I went to the Dalek Asylum, and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The place blew, my ship was half-trashed, and my body was ripped open. I had enough spare parts on the ship to keep myself alive, but I was losing oxygen, when a voice came over my speakers. It was confused and scared. And Dalek. Dalek's don't get scared, Doctor.'

'We know.'

'It gave me instructions, on how to fix the ship.' Seripho smiled. 'I owe her. She gave me life, a body, a plan. I gave her the body she'd lost back.'

'Oh! Oooooooh!' Tess bounced, then grinned and picked up a pad, smiling at the three Doctors. 'Lets clear this whole mess up, eh?' She moved her hand, and the nanogenes seemed to react. 'These hyper-nano-genes have been programmed to invade your bodies, change your genealogies, so...' She threw them towards the three Doctors. 'I can change you back.'

The three Doctors were encased in light, a burning yellow case. It poured through them, changing back what they'd done. Reversing the virus.

'Take those two away,' the Doctor heard Tess say. He didn't even get to see them as they were dragged away - the light had still encased.

'How fascinating, Doctor,' Tess said, walking up to him as the light faded. 'The little buggers are confused by you. They remember infecting you, identifying your greatest fear and changing you into it, and yet there is no change.'

The Doctor smiled, his shoulders hanging low. 'What now?'

'Well, we both know you know who's inside there, waiting to come out.'

'You took a soul and built it a body, that'd take-'

'A screaming genius.'

The room stopped. Everyone looked up, to the speakers around the room. 'That was...' Seripho said, having the truth dawn on him.

The pod cracked open, pathing the way for a weak, sweating, nude Clara to stagger out.

'But that's...!' Seripho seemed unable to take it in. 'How can that be her?'

'Who is it?' Tess asked.

'That's Clara Oswald.'

She swallowed, smiled, readying for her first words in a long time. 'That's Oswin Oswald.'

Her legs gave out under her, and the Doctor and Seripho both leapt forwards, helping her up.

'What do you feel?' Tess asked her, handing her a long jacket that covered her.

'Alive,' she said. 'So long, in that metal form. God, I hate binary. Dalek technology is so backwards.'

'But how can you be alive?' The Doctor looked at her, squinting. 'I watched you die, back at the Asylum. The planet exploded.'

'The Dalek shell I was in, once you made me realise I was part of the technology, I created a program that would save my personality.'

'You downloaded your soul into a computer.'

'But you're a murderer,' Seripho said. 'You pushed me to kill and we started this virus, we've got blood on our hands. And you travel with this guy?'

Oswin smiled. 'I'm not Clara,' she said. 'I mean, I am, but I'm not. You see Doctor, when I was downloaded, something must have slipped. Somewhere in the code, I was unlocked. And I saw forever in your eyes.'

'Who are you?' the Doctor asked.

'I am Clara. And Oswin. The girl in London? That was me. The girl Seripho shot? I remember. I remember everything.' She slowed, thinking. 'But it's not time yet. You haven't learned yet.'

'Learned what?'

'Who I am. What I am to you, Doctor. I can't tell you, not until you know what happens. What I am.'

The Doctor was confused. Frankly, everyone was.

Miles was cock-headed, trying to wrap his head around this. 'So you're a companion, but you're not.'

'Basically,' Oswin said, smirking.

'Where do I go?' the Doctor asked. 'What are you.'

'It'll present itself,' Oswin said. 'Now, I have two orders. One, Tess, you will reverse the virus, and set them to heal and recover the dead bodies. Everyone will survive.'

'You still talk like a Dalek,' the Doctor noted.

'I am not yet human,' she said. 'You are a catalyst, Doctor. You will break the barrier between my Dalek-inspired body and the human mind waiting inside. But not yet. I'm using whatever humanity I have within me to save this world, but they should get out.' Oswin looked at Tess. 'Time tells us that Earth II falls, and this is the day it does. Get everyone off. This Pyrman Corp is just a front, tell people the company went under and to take their business elsewhere. Free shipping of colonies to New Earth. Take people away.'

'Nobody has to die,' the Doctor smiled. 'I think there's more Clara in you than you know.'

'Once you have seen my birth, and the reason for all you have been so confused about, then you come. You see I have one last lesson to teach you Doctor.'

'Ah yes. Consequences of my actions.'

Oswin smiled. 'Not quite.'

She took Seripho's arm and hit his teleport, leaving the Doctor alone in the room with Tess and Miles, who were both completely lost for words.

'Well you heard her,' the Doctor said. 'Get everyone out. Now!' he yelled. Tess started tapping her pad, organising things. Getting the hyper-nano-genes to fix the population.

'Right.. well... I'll be off.' The Doctor walked out, back towards his TARDIS, with Miles hot on his tail.

'Where are you going?'

'To visit a friend, have some adventures. Whatever happened here, it's not over,' he said. 'But apparently we have to wait for things to fall into place first. The slow road.'

Miles nodded, and offered his hand. 'Thank you Doctor.'

'Oh, don't do that,' he shrugged. Miles grabbed him and hugged him.

'Thank you. You saved my world.'

They released, and the Doctor was smiling like an idiot. 'Oh Miles, you'll make me blush!'

'I'll keep Tess in check, make sure she does everything right. I hear she's scared of guns.'

'Well, yes. No. No guns. Talking's better. We like talking.'

'If you say so, Doc.' Miles turns to leave, but calls the Doctor back. 'Doctor?'

'Yeah?'

'Who was she?'

The Doctor smiled to himself. 'I have no idea. But I think I'm closer to finding out.'


	34. E5C1: After Trenzalore

After Trenzalore, everything changed.

The Doctor knew the truth. Clara had given herself, against her better judgment, for him. To save him. every single part of him. She'd nearly destroyed herself doing it, too.

This wonderful friend of his had died again to save him.

And yet he was still thinking about Earth II. Oswin and Seripho. Tess and Miles. Everything that had happened, how Oswin had come back, had grown a new body, ready to challenge him, and them went silent. He couldn't find her anywhere, but he knew they wouldn't come out until she wanted him to.

But now it was done. Now he knew who she was, and that was what she'd wanted, right? She wanted to wait until he had all the facts.

'So that's who I am...' Clara said to him as the TARDIS took them away, far far away from Trenzalore, back to the only place he had now.

Earth.

His second home.

He was half expecting to walk out of that great big blue box into a graveyard of dying humans, the next apocalypse. Or to see Dalek ships raining down on the sky. Or Werewolves jumping out of young boys.

The world he walked out onto, however, was calm. It was night-time, just after sunset for what he could tell. Summer. Warm.

'You are Clara,' the Doctor said. 'Clara Oswald, you saved my life and everything I am.'

'Shut up.'

'That's mean!'

'I fancy ice-cream. Wanna come in for ice-cream?'

The Doctor relented for a moment, but figured, you know what? Ice-cream is always good.

He followed her into the house, where the two kids were sat on the sofa, watching some bad T.V.

'Bringing another boyfriend home?' Angie called out to them.

'It's the Doctor!' she called back.

Angie and Artie didn't move, but Angie yelled 'Don't eat all the ice-cream!'

'Ugh, okay!' Clara moaned, taking the Doctor, grinning, through to the kitchen. she checked the cupboards, then the fridge, pulling out some remnants of a pizza. 'Pizza?'

'Absolutely!'

She opened up the box, revealing a half-rotten pepperoni pizza. 'Maybe not, then.'

While she searched for something else, the Doctor wandered through to the living room, where Angie and Artie both sat on the sofa, watching a show the Doctor didn't know. It seemed far too dramatic and gory for these two.

Looking over them, he realised Artie was asleep, which was a plus. Angie, however, seemed transfixed by the scenes of people being slaughtered on screen, smiling oddly to herself.

The Doctor sat back and watched the T.V, as some person was slowly dismembered, and decided that this was something no child show watch for entertainment. Snatching the remote from Angie, and giggling whilst he did so, the Doctor went to change the channel.

Before he had the chance, however, the T.V started to flicker itself.

Both Angie and the Doctor leaned in, watching as the picture skewed. The Doctor hit the remote a few times, muttering at it.

Clara emerged from the kitchen, empty handed, a quizzical look on her face. 'What's going on?'

'T.V's all weird,' Angie said. 'He did it.'

'Did not!' the Doctor defended, his voice cracking.

'Doctor?'

The Doctor turned to see Clara, pointing at the screen. 'Is that me?'

Indeed, Clara's face was on the T.V. The screen was flickering and the picture was hard to make out, but it was definitely her.

'Why are you on T.V?' Angie asked.

The Doctor stood, realising what was going on. 'Okay. Thats not you.'

'What?'

'I mean, it is you, but it's one of you. The one from the Asylum,' he said, leaving the room.

'What Asylum?!' Angie called after them as Clara followed him out of the house and into the TARDIS.

'That version of me survived?'

'Survived as a bit of binary, floating about in space, managed to find the human soul, then use it to build her a body. She's back from the dead. She died, but she's back, and she broke the system.'

'I don't remember any of this.'

'That's because she's not you anymore, not even a part of you. She was technology for a spell, that turned her into more of a copy, like a fax. She's a carbon-copy, yes, but not the original letter.'

'And what's she doing on the T.V?'

'It's a signal. Now I know who she is, and what she is, I can stop her!'

'Stop her? From what? What did I do?'

'She's not you Clara. she killed an entire world, then brought it back to life. and she gave the order for quite a few more to be killed, actually.'

'I'm a murderer?'

'Again, not you.'

'No, but a carbon copy. That's in me. That's part of me who did those things.'

The Doctor took Clara in his arms. 'You should stay here. You've been through a lot.'

'Not a chance, Doc.'

'Clara-'

'If there's a version or a copy or whatever of me, out there, doing evil deed, then well... we never walk away, do we Doctor?'

'No we don't.'

'I'm not leaving this alone.'

The Doctor smiled, and closed the TARDIS doors behind her. He hopped to the console, searching for the signal that was transmitting into the T.V. Nothing.

'Strange,' he said, humming.

'What is?'

'I can't find the signal... oh. Oh! Oh, wait! Wait, wait, wait...' he was bouncing around the console, flicking switches and hitting buttons. 'When is a signal not a signal?'

'I don't think that makes sense...'

'When it's a T.V show!' the Doctor grinned. 'She's using the television all across the world, reaching out to me. It's a huge signal, one massive takeover. Of just her face.'

'My face.'

'I suppose.'

'Everywhere?'

'I'm guessing, yes.'

'Can you trace it?'

'Course I can!' he smiled, pushing his favourite friendly button. The TARDIS jolted into flight, dematerialising from Clara's front garden, and off after the signal.

'Where to?' Clara asked, holding onto the console, grinning.

'No idea!' the Doctor laughed.

This should be fun.


	35. E5C2: Good Vibrations

'I have the signal!'

'You have it?' Clara shouted as the TARDIS, louder than usual, throttled through time and/or space. 'Where's it taking us?'

The Doctor squinted at the monitor. 'Hold on, that can't be right...'

'What?'

'We're not moving.'

Clara looked around at the TARDIS, shaking and convulsing. 'Not moving?'

'Well, we're moving...' the Doctor was flung out of sight for a moment, but quickly bounced back up, hair flopping over his face, with an exhilerated grin. 'Just not going anywhere!'

'What the hell does that entail?'

'We're vibrating,' the Doctor said, clinging to Clara' arm as she was fixed by the console, keeping steady. 'Vibrating a million times a second. Transfer that over a couple of dimensions, things get shaky!'

The movement slowly died down, until it was only a dull fuzz.

'We're still going,' the Doctor said. 'The TARDIS has just got used to it.'

'Why are we vibrating?'

'It's the signal, it's dragging us through time. Usually, you think of time being a kind of forwards-backwards deal, but this is almost drilling us through the side of time's vortex, ripping it open.'

'And we're going through the scar?'

'Yes we are!'

'Into what, exatly?'

'The void, I suppose.'

'That's sounds peachy.'

'It's not working, don't worry. If we were in the void all the lights would cut out and the TARDIS would start-'

Every singly light cut out, as he had predicted. A noise, like a howling child, grew from somewhere very far away, but not outside.

'Screaming,' the Doctor finished.

Everything was silent, but for that scream. It wasn't human, that's for sure. It wasn't animalistic, either. Nor electronic.

Clara had heard a sound like that, in a pub in London a long time ago. A man named Harry was singing, playing his guitar, to a song he had dedicated to his lost daughter. His voice had ripped the way this scream did. It hit you on a level you weren't sure you were supposed to feel. It was heartbreaking.

'What do we do now?' Clara asked.

The Doctor swallowed his fear. 'Um. I'm not sure. Never really been to the void, it's kind of empty space. Nothing here. No dimension to step into... unless...' The Doctor started to laugh. 'That's what this is!'

'What?'

'It's the void, which is nothing. Space between the dimension. But what happens when you stick a dimension inside of it. A dimension, say, inside a TARDIS?'

'I don't know. What happens?'

'You create a bridge.'

'A bridge?'

'A bridge of reality. Two seperate dimensions joined by this small one. But that means she's being stretched... Oh my dear...'

The Doctor stroked a part of the TARDIS, comforting her.

'Why would I do that?' Clara asked herself. 'Maybe,' she turned to the Doctor. 'I'm trying to leave, start a new life somewhere where I'm not, you know, me.'

'Why bother?' the Doctor asked. 'She could perfectly well in our Universe for long enough, why would she need to leave now?'

Clara nodded, thinking. The console room was eeries when it was dark. Cold, even. 'Is she dead?' Clara asked.

'No,' said the Doctor frowning. He listened. 'Hear that? That scream? That's the TARDIS. Somewhere deep inside, it's heart is in pain, but not dying. It's alive. It's being kept alive.'.

'What could do that?'

'I'm going to guess Oswin. Somehow. If she's you, which she is, with every memory of every life time you've lived, then chances are she knows an awful lot about the TARDIS. Enough to keep it alive.'

'Even in the void?'

The Doctor took a deep breath. 'Apparently.'

Clara walked towards the doors.

'Don't go out there,' the Doctor warned. 'Don't even open them. There is nothing out here. No light, no dark, no up no down. Nothing.'

'But I can hear something...' she moved towards the doors, placing her hand on the wood.

'What is it?' he asked, stepping forward.

'I don't know... I can barely make it out...' She put her ear to the door.

'I'm not sure you should-' the Doctor was cut off by a screech. 'What was that?!'

'Can anything live out here?' Clara asked.

'Somethings. Cybermen, Daleks in the right ships. I'm not sure what else. It's absence, pure absence. There should be nothing.'

'Screee!'

Clara moved away fom the door, a look of fear and wonderment on her face, mirroring the Doctor. He swallowed again.

'That was something,' he said. 'Oh this is Midnight all over again! But that, that made a noise.'

'Screee!'

The Doctor bounced forwards, pushing his stethoscope to the door. 'I know that sound...'

'What is it?' Clara asked, croushing next to him.

'Them,' he nodded. 'There's a few. At least four, probably more.'

'Are they going to kill us.'

'Why, you wanna open the door?'

'A little bit.'

'Only a little? You disappoint me,' he smiled.

'Go on, then!' she nudged him. He flinched, and she gave him a look of 'seriously?'

He opened the door a tiny crack, looking out. He couldn't see anything. Darkness. Darkness wasn't supposed to be here.

Then the darkness moved.

The Doctot slammed the door, jumping back, sonic at the ready.

'What was it?!' Clara asked after a moment.

'Reapers.'

'That's sounds cheery. Friendly?'

'Not usually. When something goes wrong in time, there are a few things that can happen. Reapers are one of them. They look a bit like dragons, but they're more like the worm medieval doctors used, eating everything around a wound to clean it.'

'They clean the wound?'

'By eating everyone near it.'

'Eating? As in, eating us?'

'Yup.'

'Excellent.'

'I've met them before, when a man who should have died didn't.'

'How'd you beat them?'

'He jumped in front of a car,' the Doctor said in a very matter-of-fact tone. That wasn't a good tone.


	36. E5C3: Ozzy

'So, we're stuck in the middle of literally nowhere, with dragons called Reapers outside, ready to eat us alive to clean the wound made in time, I assume, that was made when we were dragged out of the time stream?' Clara very succinctly rounded up.

'Couldn't have said it better myself,' the Doctor said, eyes still locked on the doors of the TARDIS.

'Why are we here, again?'

'Because we followed that signal,' the Doctor stopped looking at the doors, closing his eyes and cursing himself. 'Of course, oh bloody hell I'm thick!'

He opened his eyes to Clara's dead expression, made eerie by the absence of lighting.

A smack at the door reminded him how vulnerable they were to the Reapers. He decided to talk quick.

'You, other you, Oswin you, she was meant to die in the Asylum. every version of you dies, all across time, all except her. Why? Because of a freak of technology. The Dalek system uploaded her, ironically, I suppose, and saved her meta-physical rear!'

'So?'

'So she broke the system! She is the rip in time, that's why the Reapers are here. If we were the original wound, they wouldn't have been here straight away. They were already here!'

'You're telling me that she was really bringing us to her, she's just surrounded by Reapers too?'

'She's alive when she shouldn't be, she's a paradox. She did die, technically, but her memories live on in the copy she made herself - that's what the Reapers are after! Not us!'

'But we still ripped a hole in the timestream, Doctor.'

'Ah. Yes. We did. Um. OH!' he smacked his forehead. 'They don't live in the void, Reapers, they live in the time stream. They float around, and when they see something out of place, they got to it. Opportunity predators.'

'Are you saying they rode us through that crack in the time stream?'

'They saw an opportunity to break out into the void, and they took it.'

'How long will they survive?' Clara asked.

'Oswin seems to be keeping the TARDIS alive, maybe she's keeping the Reapers alive too.'

'But why? Why would she invite things trying to kill her and keep them alive?'

'Err...' The Doctor smiled, and opened the doors again.

A Reaper, black, hard skin and red eyes, screamed at him and flew away, into the darkness. The Doctor laughed, looking up, seeing six Reapers flying in circles above them, in perfect concentric circles. Swirling in the night.

One swerved towards him, but didn't attack. It just flew past.

Clara joined him, watching the dark shapes flying up there, by the-

The ceiling.

They were in a room.

It was huge, and dark, but there was definitely a ceiling up there, holding them in. Air, too, the Doctor found as he stepped out.

The floor was strange - it didn't seem to be made of anything, it was just there. Something made out of nothing. Oswin.

'She made this room for us,' he said to Clara. They looked upwards, to the Reapers. 'They came along for the ride. It's the room that's keeping them, and the TARDIS alive.'

'Where are we?'

'Must be a little pocket universe. I've been in one before, but it was like a little world. This is made from nothing. Oswin built this place. A hiding place. But from what?'

'Reapers? They were obviously hunting her.'

'Maybe, but she's clever. She could find a simpler way to get them off her tail than this. This is... huge. Scary huge.'

'Well, maybe she really is just looking for a new home. Is the TARDIS still being stretched?'

'Yeah, she is. This place isn't supposed to be here at all. The TARDIS is getting pulled into a dimension that shouldn't exist. She's resisting, bless her.'

Clara and the Doctor stepped further out onto the dark, nothingness floor. It felt like walking on a new carpet - kind of squidgy. Bouncing under their feet.

'SO!' the Doctor yelled. 'We're here! Hello? Oswin?! OZZY?!'

'What the hell are you doing?' Clara asked with a hiss.

'She didn't bring us here for nothing, maybe we can help. Maybe she wants us here to help her. Like you said, she could just be trying to build a new home, away from predators.'

Clara looked up. 'Wouldn't blame her.'

'Of course, there is the chance that she's just brought us onto her turf so we're easier to kill.'

'Oh. Fantastic.'

'What would be the point?' came Clara's voice, but it wasn't her. Oswin stood by the TARDIS, looking at them. She didn't smile. 'Clara, Doctor,' she greeted them.

'So, then. Why did you bring us here?'

'Because I needed you out of the way,' she said. 'According to history, I don't exist. She does. And, according to history, you're dead, Doctor.'

'Yeah. Kind of tricked history there, didn't I?'

'Well, I'm here to put it right,' she said. Now she smiled. 'In this place, I decide what should be. And I say you two shouldn't be here.'

The Reapers stopped spinning. They hovered, still.

'if you're wondering what's going on, they're reworking themselves. Reprogramming, I suppose.'

'To what?'

'To eat you two,' she said. 'Only one of us can exist, and he was supposed to die in Utah. I'm fixing that.'

'Why you?' the Doctor asked. 'I mean, I get me. You figure yourself a little time-vigilante, eh? Fine. Kill me. But her, she's you. You're gonna murder her, for what?'

'What do you think, Doctor,' Clara said. 'All of the places we went, where she was, with Seripho. They were finding a way to sustain life from a computer. She wants to live.'

'More than anything,' Oswin nodded. 'Clever girl.'

'How did you make this place?' The Doctor asked her. 'Nice engineering.'

'I have Seripho. He's a good boy. This was his first task for me. To make a place outside of the Universe, somewhere for us to hold up.'

'That's how he jumped through time,' the Doctor nodded. 'He used the time-streams.'

'Genius, isn't it?'

'Insane, more like.'

'Maybe, but I'm okay with that. Spend enough time without emotions, without guilt, you kind of get used to killing for your own purpose, Doctor. Insane works for me.'

'So what now?' the Doctor asked.

Oswin smiled, stepping in front of the TARDIS. 'This box is fiftyt foot by fifty by fifty. How fast can you run?'

She nodded her head and all six Reapers plunged, chasing towards the Doctor and Clara, screeching away.

Oswin, meanwhile, stepped inside the TARDIS, smiling. She liked being able to enjoy things again. To feel happy.

Maybe she'd stop the Reapers. Let them go.

Ha!


	37. E5C4: How To Train Your Dragon

The Doctor shielded Clara, desperately waving his screwdriver in an attempt to ward of the Reapers, who for a moment might move away, but quickly figured out that he was of no real risk to them. They just kept coming.

The Doctor watched as Oswin stepped inside the TARDIS in an obvious attempt to get away. She could revive the TARDIS, then. She must be able to, if she was keeping it alive and was no wandering in.

With a brainwave, he lifted the screwdriver and sent a signal to the TARDIS. A warning. 'Don't leave yet', he sent.

He'd put in this feature after the last time someone had hijacked his TARDIS, resulting in the Master becoming PM of Great Britain, and almost wiping out humanity. Didn't want that happening again.

Oswin, to her credit, didn't seem phased, and closed the doors behind her. The TARDIS didn't budge. Doubtless she was trying.

Clara didn't want to cower behind the Doctor, but he wouldn't let her shield him. 'I'd live, maybe,' he kept saying. It was ridiculous. So bloody stubborn.

She got a glimpse of Oswin as she stepped inside the TARDIS - wearing a white top and grey trousers that hugged her legs.

Clara looked down, realising she was wearing a top the same as her, under her jacket and t-shirt. Her jeans were a dark blue, but maybe they wouldn't notice that.

'Give me the key,' she said, taking off her jacket and the top she had over the white vest. 'Doctor, now.'

'It's in a cubby hole above the 'P', I don't have one on me.' The Reapers dove and, forcing Clara and the Doctor further again from the TARDIS. 'What are you planning?'

Clara threw away her jacket and her t-shirt, so now she was just in white. She decided to go for it. She stepped forwards, to the Reapers.

They paused, seemingly confused. They stared at her, working it out.

She used the time to move towards the TARDIS, jumping up to get the key from the cubby hole.

As she bounced down, however, they seemed to clock on, lunging at her.

She squealed and jumped aside, letting a Reaper smack into the TARDIS doors, knocking them in.

There was a Reaper in the TARDIS.

Inside, Oswin turned, shocked by what was going on. Clara stood, smirking slightly, staring at her over the unconscious Reaper.

'What?'

'Hello me,' Clara said, stepping in. Oswin stepped forwards.

Another Reaper was lunging towards the TARDIS doors, turning Clara's head with it's screech.

She caught a look at the Doctor as he snapped his fingers. The doors shut on them, holding out the other Reaper.

He was outside with them, alone.

Both Clara and Oswin looked at the Reaper, then to the doors.

'What now?' Clara asked.

'How about we settle our differences and get this Reaper out of here before it wakes up?'

'I'm with that,' Clara said. They both bolted to the doors, slamming against them. They wouldn't budge.

Clara tried the key she'd taken from above the 'P', but still no result. He'd locked them in. Or himself out, with the other five Reapers.

Clara and Oswin turned to each other, at the door, and both explored their brains for their memories of the TARDIS. They both had the memories from all of their lives, for when they wanted to access them, right at the back.

Clara let them in, exploring her mind, thinking back to being a worker on Gallifrey, building and farming TARDIS', knowing their layout.

Oswin seemed to be doing the same.

'Dungeon,' Oswin said.'

'Would we get it there?' Clara asked.

The Reaper shuddered. It could smell the energy coming off the TARDIS - even in this state.

'Err... I could punch you, knock you out and leave you here for when it got up.'

'Why would you do that?'

'Because if I did, then I could sail into the universe and take up your slot in the Universe.'

'You want to become me?'

'I suppose.'

'I'll tell you this now,' Clara said, turning on the TARDIS monitor. It flashed, then sprung to life. 'I'm no murderer.'

Oswin hung her head, then eyed what Clara was doing. 'Why bother?'

'I need to check he's okay. You know him. He'll get himself eaten in a heartbeat.'

'He'd trip over those legs of his.'

'Or that chin.'

The humour was lost when the Reaper snorted. It was close to waking up.

Clara's monitor panned around, revealing a scene neither of them had expected to see. The Doctor was sat on the soft black floor, nursing a Reaper that seemed to have fallen and hurt it's wing.

'Is he...?'

'I think so.'

Just as they were watching the Doctor soniced the TARDIS again, and the doors slowly swung open.

Just in time, as the Reaper stood up and waddled it's way out of the TARDIS, towards the Doctor, setting down next to it's harmed brother.

Clara and Oswin left the TARDIS, tentatively moving towards him. The Doctor grinned.

'These guys are lovely!' he said, rubbing the injured wing-joing of the Reaper lying down.

'What the hell are you doing?' Clara hissed. The Doctor frowned.

'Well, I know they're a bit rough, but they're just like dogs. Rub 'em in the right spot and they're lining up!'

'Jeez you're like the kid from 'how to train your dragon' or something,' Oswin said. Clara and the Doctor both looked at her, shocked.

'That seems about right,' the Doctor said, rubbing the Reaper. He left it, standing. 'Go on, try it!'

The Reaper moved, spreading it's modest wingspan, flaring them out. The wings were beautiful up-close. Dark, with hints of red, like fiery veins under the thick skin. It took Clara's breath away.

The Reaper flapped, struggling initially, but eventually finding itself able to climb into the air, giving a happy, purring sound as it did so.

'Right then you two,' the Doctor said, moving towards them. 'How's it coming?'

'What?' Oswin asked.

'The catalyst thing. I'm a catalyst!' He beamed at Clara, as though this was a title he would wear proudly on a badge or something.

'You're what's making me more like her?' Oswin asked, looking at Clara.

'Eventually you'll be identical. You wanted to be human. You're getting there. Still a few empathy issues, though, but that's just the echo of Dalek technology running about in your noggin. Realistically, your evil, murderous schemes to overtake Clara's life will fade away within the day.'

'What about fixing the time stream of you, Doctor?'

'Well, now. That's just rude.'

Oswin smiled, and flickered away.

'How did she do that?' Clara asked, pointing at where her clone had stood.

'Teleport. Long-range, too. She was picked up by someone. Seripho, no doubt. Bet she still has him on a leash.'

'You don't seem too worried, Doctor.'

'Well, she's becoming more and more like you. And I like you. So all we have to do is wait and stay alive.'

'Easier said than done, I think.'

'Perhaps...'


	38. E5C5: Are We Flirting?

Clara and the Doctor stepped inside the TARDIS, closing the doors tightly behind them, leaving the Reapers.

'Are they staying here?' Clara asked.

'I'll open up the gap in time, they can slip back into the time vortex, off back into what we see as reality.'

'Where are we going?' she asked, moving towards him as he flicked switches, getting ready for take-off.

The Doctor didn't asnwer, meaning he didn't know.

'She evaded you for a while, didn't she?'

'Oswin? Yeah. Manaed to find a way to hide from me until I'd bene to Trenzalore. I'm guessing she was in this cube, actually. She'll be away until she wants to be found.'

Clara nodded, understanding, as the TARDIS made that beautiful sound, and whisked them away, back across the void into the time-stream, Reapers in tow.

...

Oswin opened her eyes.

She was standing - that was a plus - in a small room, covered in junk and switches and small lights. It was cramped but cosy.

Seripho stepped towards her, from the other side of the small room. Oswin smiled and moved to hug him.

Seripho raised an eyebrow and moved aside, letting her pass by. She stopped dead and evaluated what had just happened. She was turning into Clara.

Was she?

Clara didn't ever hug the Doctor. Why would Oswin try to hug Seripho?

'What the hell was that?' Seripho said, eyebrow srill raised.

'I...' she couldn't answer. She had no idea what had brought her to do that.

'What's our next step, fearless leader?' Seripho asked her.

'I thout you were leaving. Off to live a new life with your new body.'

Seripho shrugged. 'Not just much of a life to build, to be honest. I like working for you. It's fine. I get to jump around time, using that trick with the timestreams you showed me.'

'You would be better leaving,' Oswin said, dismissing him. 'I'm not sure what I'm turning into.'

'Well, I have to say I've noticed a change,' Seripho said, sitting down. 'Do you know where you are, by the way?'

'No.'

'My ship!' Seripho smiled. 'This is what I was in when I was flying past the Asylum you blew up.'

'I'm sorry.'

'That's a first.'

'What?' Oswin said, after a pause.

'Well, you don't often say 'sorry'. Kind of strange knowing it came from you.'

'What was I like?' Oswin asked. 'When I was a machine. Before you knew my name, or my voice.'

'You were more confident,' he said. 'And mean.'

'Mean?'

'Threatening. You threatened me a lot. It's how you got me into this.'

'I offered you a body.'

'After telling me that you would break my mind if I didn't.'

Oswin sat on the floor. 'I'm sorry, Seripho.'

'You destroyed my ship, half killed me and threatened my life,' Seripho said, geting off his chair to sit with her. He clicked his fingers and a thick jug of liquid came out of the wall between them. 'Why do I keep forgiving you...'

He took the jug and offered it to her. 'They call it retsuilid. Pleasant name, I know. But it's tasty. Sweet.'

'Alcohol?'

'Yeah.'

She took it from him, and Seripho smiled. 'I'm not sure whether the lack of evil-plans unnerves me or reassures me.'

'Should I be more evil?'

'I don't know. Are we still planning on wiping out the Doctor?'

'No, we're not. Or Clara.'

'How does that work? Don't you create a problem, or something. Though you were a time-purist, that there could only be one of you.'

'Who could complain with two of me?' she smiled.

Silence fell, but not an awkward silence. More of a calm, tranquil one.

'Are we flitring?' Oswin asked.

Seripho nodded. 'I think we are.'

'Excellent.'

Seripho laughed, until an alarm sounded on the dsh of the ship. His ears twiytched, and he bolted up. 'I know that sound, that's not a good sound...'

'What is it?'

Seripho didn't answer, but instead started punching in comands to the keyboard. 'Disengage!' he yelled into the speaker. 'Disengage, please!'

Oswin stood up. 'What is it, Seripho?'

'Missiles,' he said. 'Locked on, but not shot yet.'

'Who is it?'

'It's a ship... I can't tell... oh. Oh bloody hell.'

'Tell me what you see.'

'The ship, it has a 'Pyrman Corp' logo on the head. They've found us.'

'The people from Earth II? How does that work? I thought that planet was abandoned?'

'It was, but not the company. The company lives on. Apparently hunting us.'

Oswin started thinking, and her first thought was the Doctor. He could help. Would he help? Would he save her, after everything? Was she worth it?

'Can you send a message?' she asked him.

'To who?'

'The Doctor.'

'Where? What co-ordinates?'

'The ones of our box.'

'Okay. This a good idea?'

'DO IT!' she yelled, as the alarm grew.

'Three missiles,' Seripho narrated as he handed Oswin a pad to write her message on.

...

Clara and the Doctor had just set off, the TARDIS had barely pushed back through the wall of the vortex, when there was a lovely 'ping'.

The Doctor checked his psychic paper. 'I've got a message!' he beamed.

The smiled dropped from his face when he read it. One word - 'help' - and co-ordinates. Signed 'O'.

He quickly got about putting in the co-ordinates. The TARDIS howled as they spun off into the vortex, chasing that message.

'What is it?' Clara asked, surprised by the sudden change.

'I know where we're going!' the Doctor yelled over the sound of the TARDIS.

'Where?'

'No idea!

Clara frowned. 'I don't think you're sane.'

The Doctor frowned back. 'You thought I was?'

'More of a hope, really.'

'Ah. Okay!'

Clara nodded, not really any wiser for that conversation. Huh.


	39. E5C6: Guilty

'What was on that paper?'

'A message!'

'A message? What kind of message?'

'A cry for he-' the Doctor was cut off by the TARDIS slamming him to the ground. 'Help', he finished.

'From who?'

'Oswin, she reached out to me.'

'Oswin. Like, the woman who sent Reapers on you?'

'Yeah, and is slowly turning into you. She's getting better. A Dalek would never ask for help, she's not so Dalek anymore.'

'Right. Next question - help from what?'

'Umm. Not sure. Could be anything really.'

Clara nodded. Great.

The TARDIS landed, wherever they were, and the Doctor looked to the monitor. 'We appear to be on a ship...' he bounced to the doors, throwing them open and letting in Oswin and Seripho, who seemed to be fretting only slightly.

Oswin slammed the doors shut, and there was a band, thump and an eerie silence from outside.

'What was that?' Clara asked.

The Doctor checked the monitor and frowned. There ship's gone.'

'Missiles,' Seripho said. 'Oh, and hi.'

'Didn't you shoot me?' Clara asked.

'I shot her, too. she forgave me.'

'And you killed Adam,' the Doctor said. 'Not to mention all of those people at the Garden. And Earth II.'

'Well, seeing as that ship says it's part of Pyrman Corp, I'm guessing Earth II thinks the same,' Seripho informed them. 'Plus, why is this on me? I mean, yes I did those thing, but I was kind of at her mercy,' he pointed at Oswin, who raised an eyebrow.

'I have a feeling it's not my forgiveness you need,' the Doctor said. 'Plus, she's becoming more human with every moment. What are you?'

Seripho looked at Oswin and smiled. 'I think I'm a little bit...' he coughed. 'Human, too. Actually.'

A ping.

'That Pyrman Corp ship is trying to contact us. Righty-roo..' he hummed, turning on the monitors. A voice they all recognised burst into the TARDIS console room.

'Doctor, you are harbouring two murderers.'

'Miles,' the Doctor replied. 'You nearly killed two people.'

'It's within the law.'

'Not mine.'

'I do not answer to you, Doctor. We do not owe them anything. As a means to thank you, for what you did to save us, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure tyhere is a reason you have for saving them.'

'Mainly it's me not liking murder.'

'Then why are they aboard.'

'They can answer for what they did, Miles. You don't have to kill them. What good is killing anyone else?'

'You know that the death penalty is in order.'

'Never.'

With that, the Doctor slammed down a lever, and the TARDIS shunted into gear, flying away into the vortex. The line to Miles cut off into static, which the Doctor let run out for a moment, before turning it off.

Silence fell upon the TARDIS, making them all shift uncomfortably. Clara was the first to speak.

'Do we have them on our tails now?'

'Yes,' the Doctor said simply.

'The whole company?'

'Yes.'

'The company that was able to get enough people under it's belt to populate an entire world?'

'It was one mega-city, I think. But yes.'

'Oh, excellent, only a mega-city.'

'What would you have me do, give them over?'

'Maybe you should have,' Oswin interrupted. 'I mean, we are responsible for the deaths of a lot of people.'

'Are you kidding?'

'Well, no,' Seripho said. 'I could say I'm sorry, but I snapped Adam's neck. I sent those people on the Garden to the slaughter. I deserve to be taken, she doesn't.' He looked at Oswin. 'She's becoming more human every day, like you said. It was the Dalek who killed those people. The Dalek in her is dying. There's enough Dalek in me to kill again, I know that.'

'You stop that,' the Doctor said. 'I stopped having mercy a long time ago and do you know what happened?'

Nobody answered.

'I nearly killed a killer. Do you see what I am? I am a killer myself. I destroyed my own race. I commit genocide weekly, did you know that? Did you know that I can't think of the last time I slept, because when I do I just see the thousands of faces that I slaughtered. I killed on orders. I murdered on whim. I am so much worse than you, Seripho. I am worse than either of you. Frankly, I'm about as bad as it gets, because I kept going. I'm still going. Still killing. I convince people they should kill themselves. I manipulate and lie and deceive my friends, for my own sake, so don't you DARE even begin feeling sorry for yourself. You are not turning yourself. Adam was a killer, and you stopped him. You did as you were told to save yourself. I've done worse for less. I am not taking you to them for that, you hear me?'

'Doctor...' Oswin stepped forwards. She didn't know what to say.

He was sweating, almost panting. He rubbed his brow, turning away. Clara approached, but he left the console room, off into the TARDIS. He didn't want to be followed, so they didn't go with him.

Clara, Oswin and Seripho sat in the console room for maybe half an hour, discussing how guilty they really were. How much of bad people they really were.

They didn't know the Doctor was sat in his study, at the back of the TARDIS, listening to their conversations on the monitors. He knew he shouldn't be watching, but they were so honest. They knew they had done bad. But he was worse.

They wanted to hand themselves in for so little.

Who would even hand himself to?

He started to think about the enemies he has killed, the creatures that had died at his hand. He was the real monster, and he knew now why that companion, back on Earth II, had been so afraid to have him as his greatest fear.


	40. E5C7: Welcome to Hell

'When I was in middle school,' Clara started. 'There was a boy who ended his own life, and I'm fairly certain it was my fault. He loved me and...'

She stopped talking, and Oswin and Seripho didn't question it. Oswin already knew, and Seripho didn't want to push her.

'I've spent the last year or so of my life as binary code from Dalek technology, which filtered out my emotions. I killed people, or at least gave the order.'

'I took their lives,' Seripho replied, nodding to himself as the TARDIS purred. 'And it felt good, at the time.' He swallowed. 'I've always read books and watched films and heard tales of killers and kings, and the villain was always his or her own hero. In their own world, they were doing good. To me, I was saving myself, and bringing life back to someone who had lost it.'

'You did,' Oswin said, nudging him.

'Yeah, but at what cost?'

'How did you do it, by the way?' Clara asked. 'The Doctor said you found the human soul. That you found the link between personality and physicality, the piece of humanity that lasts after death.'

'There is spectral energy everywhere,' Seripho said. 'People have it in masses. It's just technology we got lucky with once.' He looked to Oswin. 'This wasn't the first body we attempted, you know. It was perfect, though.' He smiled. 'You are perfect.'

'I like to think so,' Oswin said.

Clara could see it. It wasn't hard. She had spent so long without any emotions, this girl. She was bound to have feelings bouncing around inside her. And he was already proving how dedicated to her he is.

'If I gave myself to them, do you think they would let her go?' Seripho asked the Doctor, as he walked in from the door opposite the small console room. The dim, blue light made the lines in his face seem close to bursting through his skin.

'I doubt it. Pyrman Corp is a company that you brought down, who have employed a person who is convinced you are the worst thing in the universe. Because of me.'

'You stop that,' Clara said, standing up. She approached him, punched him on the shoulder, making him smile, and then took him in a hug. 'Stop that now.'

The Doctor sniffed, holding something back. 'Miles is good though,' the Doctor continued. 'We could try just talking to him.'

'In your mind,' Oswin said. 'You are harbouring two murderous time-travellers and ran when he tried to take us down.'

'He might listen.'

'Aren't you the optimist,' Seripho said, with a hint of bitterness. 'Fact is Doctor, you go to talk to him, one of us isn't coming back.' He looked at Oswin. 'She fought for life, she deserves. Everything she did, blame that on the Daleks, not on her. And you two, well, the Universe needs you. You're heroes, even if you screw up every now and again. Who doesn't, right?'

'I'm not leading you to your death, Seripho.'

'Why not?'

'Because she needs you,' Clara interrupted.

Seripho turned to Oswin, who looked a little shocked. 'Whut?'

Clara stepped forwards, between the two. 'Oswin was Dalek, but she beat them. They tried to kill her, but she got out. And she was doomed. But there you were. You saved her. You brought her life, a body. And now you're giving her her soul back. You found the human soul just to give hers back. Oswin was nothing like me, and the Doctor was supposed to be the catalyst to make her more human, more Clara, more Oswin. But he's not. The Doctor is nothing to do with it. It's you, Seripho.'

'What's me?'

'The catalyst. You are what's changing.'

'How do you make a Dalek, Oswin?' the Doctor asked.

'Subtract love, add hate,' she said, remembering.

'So to make a human?

Oswin closed her eyes. 'Subtract hate. Add love.'

'Add love.' The Doctor smiled, looking to Seripho and Oswin. 'Add love,' he sang, clapping his hands.

Clara took each of them in her hands, and joined them, pushing them together,

'Why are you holding back?' Clara asked Oswin.

'I don't...' she looked at Seripho, who looked equally worried. Something told Clara that he had never loved anyone before. She wondered how long hate had consumed him.

Oswin pulled Seripho in, and for the first time the Doctor saw that he had no idea what the hell he was doing. Always so confident, but now he was bumbling.

Oswin hopped up and kissed him. She clung to him, and he held her in his strong arms, holding her up to his lips. She hummed under him and he couldn't help but smile.

Clara had to stop herself from squeaking with happiness for her clone.

Oswin eventually let him go, and Seripho put her down, still grinning. She punched his chest and he laughed. She had never heard him laugh like that before. It was gruff, gravelly. It made her smile.

'I forgot that you humans like doing that...' the Doctor said disapprovingly. 'So much kissing. All the time. Seriously. It's strange. Whole species.'

'I'm not human,' Seripho reminded him.

'Nah, but you're a sub-species. Same difference.'

Oswin coughed, and smiled. 'I can feel it,' she said, clutching her chest. 'It's like... I don't know. Hot, but good. Warm. Fuzzy.'

'Welcome to hell,' Clara joked, nudging her. Oswin laughed.

'He's your catalyst,' the Doctor said to Oswin. 'He makes you human.'

'What about you, Doctor?' Seripho asked him. 'What keeps you human?'

'I'm not human either,' he said. 'But I've loved.'

'River?' Clara asked.

The Doctor laughed. 'I suppose. And others. There was someone, before River, who I lost. She was with the two faces before this one.'

Seripho looked completely lost.

'When I get fatally wounded, I regenerate,' the Doctor said. 'Complete work-over. New face, new everything. And she... she helped me move away from war. My ninth regeneration died in love, and so my tenth was born in love with her. When I lost her, I went mad. I was born in madness, you see. Maybe that's why I am the way I am. I was born out of loss and madness.'

Oswin took Seripho's hand. 'What was her name?'

'Rose Tyler,' the Doctor said. He looked to the floor. 'She's happy. Somewhere. Might even have kids, now. I don't know. I never even told her...'

Clara sat on the floor, and Oswin took her lead. Seripho followed, leaving the Doctor standing. 'Tell us about her,' Clara told him.

'About Rose?'

'Yeah.'

'What do you want to know?'

'Everything that made you love her. Why you didn't get to tell her. Where she is. Anything you want.'

The Doctor sat down, joining them. Even the TARDIS quietened, as though listening softly to his own confession. He spoke of how they met. How the girl with no A levels changed his life, made him better after the Time-War. Saved his life. He spoke of her falling out of this Universe and him having to shut her away. Of her coming back. He told them about the clone of his tenth regeneration. He let it all out. Finally.

When he spoke, it was almost as though she were here with them, listening. She would have hated hearing the way he talked about her - in past tense.


	41. E5C8: Just a Thing

'So what do we do now?' Oswin asked. 'Are they going to keep following us?'

'They won't find us here,' the Doctor said. 'They can't track across time. Almost impossible.'

'We managed it,' Seripho pointed out.

'But that's because you knew where I was going. I had Clara with me in the places you knew I was having to go. After I left her at home it took me ages to meet with you again.'

'Is that so?' Clara asked.

'What happened on Earth II is coming back to us now, though. Miles, working for Pyrman Corp. It's madness,' the Doctor coughed.

'Where are we, by the way?' Oswin asked.

'In that little box of yours, outside the universe.'

'Are the Reapers still here?'

'Nope, peaceful. Atmosphere is stable, somehow. Whatever you did to build this place is fascinating. You're much smarter than you let on, Seripho.'

Seripho nodded, accepting the compliment. 'Thank you. Not that it was all me. My fearless leader did give me pointers.'

'What can I say,' Oswin grinned. 'Screaming genius - kind of a thing.'

'A thing?' Clara smiled.

'A big thing. Important thing.'

The Doctor stood, leaving them to their banter. He knew they would have to confront Miles at some point. If not they would keep hunting, and they would find Oswin and Seripho, wherever they went. Pyrman Corp seemed to be a big, rich company. Maybe it had invested in time-travel. Maybe it had invested research into finding out what exactly happened on Earth II. Maybe they developed the technology, in fear of the Doctor.

The Doctor checked the monitors, looking out at the black box he had landed the TARDIS in again. The TARDIS still didn't like it here, but it was getting used to it. She was more alive this time, as though she had made reserves of power, knowing that she was coming back. Clever girl.

'What power source do you have here?' the Doctor asked Oswin and Seripho.

'The Black-hole,' Seripho answered.

'You have a black-hole as a power source?'

'THE Black-hole. The first. Ever,' Oswin corrected him.

'TimeLords invented black-holes, you know that?'

'Then this box is suckered next to it. At some point in time, anyway. That's what's good about this place. It exists out of time, but also next to it, seeping off different points, everywhere, every-when.'

'Little box powered by a black-hole. sounds familiar...' Clara smiled.

The TARDIS gave a purr, as though acknowledging it herself. The Doctor watched the monitors still, feeling as though there was something wrong. Out of place. He couldn't put his finger on it.

'Doctor?' Clara called, snapping him out of it. He shook his head, laughing a little.

'Sorry. Just... a thing.'

'A thing?'

'Anyone else feel like we're being watched?'

They all paused and, with some thought, had mixed responses. Oswin nodded. Seripho shook his head. Clara stayed still.

The Doctor moved to the TARDIS doors, opening them a crack. 'Something's not quite right.' He stepped out onto the soft, shifting floor, looking around.

He could see, from here, the crack they had come through. It was lodged in the black, dark wall. A blue, shimmering slice in the wall of nothing.

'Could they trace us here?' Oswin asked. 'Is it even possible to trace something outside of the Universe?'

'Maybe,' the Doctor said, thinking. 'I hope not.'

'But they could,' Seripho said, joining him outside. 'Pyrman Corp had a lot of money. If they knew they would have to track us... track you, then they might have invested in this kind of thing.'

The crack shimmered.

'I think you might be right.'

A spark flew out of it, which lead to the crack widening a little.

'Something's coming through, isn't it,' Clara said. All of them were outside the TARDIS now, watching the crack in the wall.

It was almost instant - the crack split wide open and the ship fell through, crashing down near them, on the other side of the box. It seemed to just flop, as though robbed of any energy.

Quiet fell.

The ship had the Pyrman logo on the side, and they knew it was Miles inside, probably plotting to kill them. Arrest them. Condemn them. Whichever he chose.

It was a sleek ship, Seripho noted. White, with the black logo and 'Pyrman' printed in big black letters on the side. It was shaped like a teardrop, with a pointed tail at the back.

The front of the ship splayed open, moving back on itself and revealing Miles and Wayy underneath, watching them. Guns raised, of course.

'You are all coming with us.'

'You're not authoritative here,' the Doctor said. 'Not your universe, not your laws. Plus, you're not actually law enforcement, and you tried to kill two people, so there's that, too.'

'Doctor-' Miles began, but Seripho stood forwards.

'What do you want of us?' he asked, using the tone he had first used with the Doctor. Confident, a little sarcastic, but stern.

'Personally, nothing,' Wayy said. 'But the guys up at Pyrman Corp know that we were in contact with you, and that you created one of the greatest losses they've ever had. It's your head, or ours, so...'

'Is that right?' Oswin said. She stood next to Clara, and Miles frowned.

'But... how is there two of you?'

'Made another body, I suppose?' Wayy jibed.

'I was here first!' Clara yelled, pointing at him.

'In anycase. You took these people in when we were supposed to destroy them,' Wayy said to the Doctor. 'Therefore you come with us.' He lifted his gun. 'Not a question, either.'

'Yes, well. I can see that.' It was obvious that the Doctor was trying to think of something to say, when Wayy seemed to get impatient. He pointed his gun at Clara, threatening to pull. He shifted it to Oswin, and Seripho flinched.

'Oh, she the important one?' Wayy smiled. 'Well, if you want her intact, you're gonna have to convince her to come calm-' he was cut off as Oswin punched him square in the jaw, knocking him to the soft ground.

''Convince' me. Arse,' she smirked.

Seripho smiled, but as he looked down to Wayy, to move his gun, he saw that Wayy wasn't knocked out. He had his gun in-hand, aimed at Oswin's chest.

He fired, sending a blue, glowing bullet into her sternum.


	42. E5C9: World Of Nightmares

Oswin staggered back, unsure how she was supposed to react. It hadn't started hurting yet. It was warm, not cold like she'd expected.

The bullet came from below, so it blew her up and back, throwing her down, facing the ceiling. Not having noticed it before, she now saw that the ceiling of her box was not soft, or fuzzy like the rest - it was just black. Hard and cold.

Seripho soon blocked her view, having stepped over her. He was asking her something, probably if she could hear him. She couldn't. Not even like he was far away, or down a corridor. She could see him, bright as day, but there was no sound. She wondered whether there was a reason for that.

She had died before, she realised. Back in the asylum. The planet had been exterminated, and her with it. If Seripho hadn't been flying by, looking for scraps in orbit, she would have never have survived. She was lucky, unlike the rest of the Daleks. That 'save' function that ensured her safety was only going to last a few seconds after the destruction of the shell. She was the only one to make it to his ship. The Daleks, in insane ones, they perished because the army was scared of them.

She tried to talk, but Seripho pushed her lips together. She saw him turn away, screaming. In anger. Maybe at Wayy. He had shot her and Seripho seemed to care.

Why should he care?

She was a flirty girl, always had been. It was a part of her that she used to get by people. Make them like you without actually having to give anything away. But Seripho had watched her, helped her, even, move from a piece of code stuck inside his spaceship into a human being. He found her soul and built her a body, and all because she asked him to.

She told him to kill and he did, without question.

She told him to feed people to creatures and he did. Without question.

He loved her, she knew. Maybe that made her a bad person? She used his love, without even knowing it, for her own gains. And those gains had lead her to fall in love right back. This body, those bloody hormones and genitals and a soul... they added up to giving her something she couldn't control around him.

She heard the bang. It was the first thing she heard since she hit the floor, and it seemed to snap everything back into place.

Her ears started working again, and she could hear Seripho's heavy breathing as he put a second bullet in Wayy's head.

The Doctor's voice strained as he pulled Seripho away, and Clara was now over Oswin, cradling her, willing her to keep breathing.

'We need to get her to a hospital!' Clara yelled. 'How long will she last?' she shot at Miles, who seemed shock he was even being considered.

'That's a grav-bullet. It's not just a hard shell, that's draining her, from the inside out.'

'How long?'

'Minutes.'

Clara stepped back, hers and Oswin's eyes locked. It was like she was looking at her own death - her body, dying in front of her. She knew that was a selfish thought, that Oswin was her own person and deserved her own life to continue, but that image just stuck. This is what it would look like if she got to watch her own death scene.

'What does a grav-bullet do?' Clara asked. 'Drain her - what does that mean?'

'It mean it's stealing her electrical energy, doesn't it, Miles,' Seripho spat. 'The human body is a battery, and once you suck the energy out of it, well, she's nothing more than a shell.' He stepped up to Miles, and the Doctor jumped between them.

'No more,' the Doctor warned Seripho. Seripho responded with a snort through his nose and turning away to see Oswin. His entire body shape seemed to shift in a second.

His shoulders slackened, his chest released a breath that came out a whimper. He hands met each other, then he bent down, lying on the floor with her.

Oswin smiled as he met her gaze, coming to her so she could see him. Her eyes were failing.

The blue glow was getting brighter, hotter now. It was starting to burn. She still felt no pain.

'I found it, Oswin,' Seripho whispered. 'Your soul. I built you back up around it. You have a soul, you're going somewhere better.'

'You hope,' she smiled, her words barely even a whisper. 'We never got that drink.'

'You shush now,' Seripho told her, holding a smile together.

Miles watched, then looked to Wayy's body, lifeless on the floor, face-down. He seemed to be the only one here who wasn't a killer. Maybe Clara, too, but death was spread all over this room.

He had only wanted to help people. That's what the Doctor did, he knew. He had helped the Doctor take down Seripho's plan, stop Tess from converting Earth II into a world of nightmares.

But here he was, protecting everyone. He just wanted death to stop, Miles realised. The Doctor didn't care about justice, or at least didn't see that as justice. Where was the justice in death?

Miles moved for Wayy's gun, but Clara stopped him.

'Not smart,' she said, holding his hands away. Miles realised he had tears in his eyes from thinking about what he was going to do.

'I know,' he said, with a splutter. 'Seripho.'

Seripho turned to see Miles, reaching for the gun so close to Clara, and lurched forwards.

Miles was faster, however, and made it to the gun and put it in the air, not pointing it at anyone. Seripho slammed into him, tackling him to the ground, thinking that Miles was going to use it on Clara - or anyone. He wanted Miles far, far away from any weapon, seeing as Pyrman Corp was obviously out to get them, and Miles seemed to believe that they were murderers and the scum of the universe, which they very well might be.

Trapping Miles down, Seripho didn't see Oswin reaching for him until the Doctor pulled him up, calling at him to take him to her.

Oswin was close now, her eyes seeming dim and her hand frail. It was as though she had aged twenty years in a minute and a half.

Clara felt sick watching her, and so turned her attention to Miles instead, who was holding the gun and getting up. The Doctor pried it out of his hands and threw it away, a look of cold fury on his brow.

Oswin held Seripho's hand as she passed.

It filled him with rage, then an emptiness, then tears that threatened to burst from his eyes. He didn't know what to do. She had been his guide for so long, and now she was just gone...

Seripho let her hand fall to the ground and, with tears now burning his eyes, moved towards the Doctor.

'Why did she have to die?' he asked him, his voice croaking and strained.

'I'm sorry I'm-'

He was cut off as Seripho picked him up by the collar, but the Doctor didn't fight it. He just waited until Seripho slackened again, letting him down and taking the Doctor in a hug, which Clara was brought into.

Miles didn't know what was supposed to happen next. He just hoped it would be quick.

He knew Seripho wasn't the forgiving type.


	43. E5C10: Only Time Would Tell

Seripho broke away from the Doctor and Clara, giving Miles a hard, stricken look, then moved to Oswin on the floor. Her body was still glowing a faint blue glow as she lay silent and unmoving.

Seripho seemed to swallow something, breathing in a deep, solidifying breath, and moved to pick her up.

He crouched next to her, looking away from her blank eyes, and slid his arm, clad in leather, under her neck. He lifted her legs with his other hand and, with little effort, lifted her up to him, standing with her safe in his arms.

One of her arms slid off her chest, hanging from her, limp. Clara stepped up to Seripho, and placed Oswin's hand back where it should be, and he thanked her just by closing his eyes to her. She knew it had helped, letting him know she cared about Oswin.

Seripho turned to the great, glowing gash that scarred the wall of the box in which they stood.

The Doctor cocked his head, and realised what he was planning to do as Seripho began to walk towards it, Oswin in his arms.

'Seripho think about this,' the Doctor said, moving after him as Seripho didn't stop. 'You'll die, you'll both die!'

'She's already gone, Doctor.'

'We can fix it, she's lived through an exploding planet, her and Clara have both died literally thousands of times,' the Doctor tried to move in front of Seripho, but he didn't falter, pushing him out of the way. They were almost at the scar now.

'She spent her life a part of time, Doctor,' Seripho said. 'I spent my time following her, chasing you. Killing, threatening. I did awful things, didn't I Miles?'

Miles didn't answer. He was shocked to have even been mentioned. He suddenly felt a massive amount of guilt for what had happened here. If he and Wayy hadn't followed the orders given to them by Pyrman Corp, they wouldn't have been here. OSwin wouldn't be where she was.

'She was starting to...' Seripho stumbled over his words.

'Seripho, it's okay,' Clara said, standing between him and the scar once he was reached it. They all stood around it now, listening to it's crackling energy and feeling the blistering heat even from here. 'She forgave you.'

'Maybe she did,' he said, sadly. 'Maybe she felt like I was a good person. A forgivable person. I felt that about her.'

'You don't need to do this, Seripho. No one else needs to die.'

'Perhaps you're right, Doctor,' Seripho said, straightening his back. 'But some of us want to.'

With a single lurch, and a yell from the Doctor as he tried to pull Seripho back, he stepped into the scar, and was torn apart by the lightning energy in seconds, along with Oswin. Strands of lightning blew back the Doctor as Seripho and Oswin became dust and were thrown into the vortex, scattered amongst everything.

The box fell an eerie quiet

Miles was the first to leave, knowing that what had transpired here was down to him, his actions had caused this.

Then again, it was because of Clara that Oswin had existed in the first place - she was a copy of her. If Clara hadn't been here, neither would anyone.

And then there was the Doctor's guilt. Everything everyone else thought was on their shoulders, he felt upon his. Miles was a kid, who the Doctor had dragged into this mess. Clara had saved his life by jumping into his time-stream at Trenzalore, creating Oswin Oswald. He was even the cause of the Asylum of the Daleks exploding, destroying Seripho's ship and almost killing him.

Miles moved to his own ship, the one he and Wayy had come in. Wayy was dead, and Miles had no respect for him, so he left the body in this place outside the rest of time, to rot.

The Doctor and Clara stayed a little longer, and broke the silence.

'Do you think they're together?' Clara asked.

'What do you mean?'

'Like, in an after-life. They found the human soul. Maybe their souls found each other.'

'Seripho wasn't human.'

'He was close. And you know what I mean.'

'Well,' the Doctor said, slumping away, breaking his look at the scar for the first time in maybe ten minutes. 'You're right. They did find it. Maybe they are.'

'You're telling me that through all they went through, they don't deserve to be together.'

'Everybody deserves to be with the one they love,' he said.

'They did love each other,' Clara said, finding herself smiling. 'After all that death, shooting me, torturing people, they still found love. The Dalek and the Murderer.'

'Not quite the same ring as 'the pig and the showgirl'...'

'What?'

'Never mind. Just... thinking.'

They left the scar, crossing the soft floor to the TARDIS, who stood, waiting for them, regal and glowing amongst the light.

'She's feeling a bit sick,' the Doctor said, stroking the TARDIS door. 'Shouldn't have been here this long. Making her queasy.'

'Well, she was ripped out of her own universe and feed on some kind of interdimensional life support. Give her a break.'

'I thought you two weren't getting on.'

'We found middle ground.'

The Doctor stopped as he was opening the TARDIS, and stuck out his tongue a little as he thought.

'What is it?'

'Well, you know on Earth II, I told you there was a future companion of mine who had been turned into me because I was their biggest fear, and the only thing I learned about them was that they weren't human?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, it was Seripho who sent those invitations to get them to Earth II. He knew who it was. He knew who I scared so much they would fear me like that.'

'Who do you think it was?'

'No idea, haven't met them yet. But for Seripho to know, they must be a fairly major part of my life, and it can't be too far away...'

He stopped, allowing Clara to move past him into the TARDIS, which they both realised was freezing cold. 'Heating must have blown. I'll fix that.'

'Doctor,' Clara called for his attention.'

'Yes?'

'Take me home. I need...' she started to cough. The reality of what had happened was just starting to hit her.

'You just watched a person with your face die, and then be carried by their love into a scar in time. You can take a few weeks off, if you'd like?'

'Please...'

'I mean, it's not like it's a job or anything. You don't need to fill in a notice, Clara. I get it. I think I'll be taking a holiday, too.'

The TARDIS landed at Clara's address, apparently only a few moments after the TARDIS had left the last time, as her face was still on the T.V when she got in.

She hugged Angie and Artie, who had fallen back to sleep, and gave them both ice-cream. She just wanted to have a quiet few days.

The Doctor did something similar. Took a week to fix the heating, even though he could have done it in half an hour if he'd tried. He liked editing the software, updating it, re-inventing it. Fiddling.

He just needed to calm himself down.

But that thought kept bugging him - what would he do, in this not-so-distant future of his, that would scare a companion into that state of anxiety?

Only time would tell, and that scared him.


End file.
